Day by Day-- Week 2

Last week I felt really rushed writing my email, so I decided that throughout the week I would write little inserts each day so I wouldn't forget anything important!

Wednesday: Last P-day was so great. We went to the temple and got to do a session. We only got 60 minutes to email which seemed like a long time, but towards the end all you could hear was really fast typing! Getting to do laundry was great too. Watching all of us trying to figure out how to start the machines was a sight! It was a little challengeing. I guess they want to see who really wants to do their laundry :P We still had language study but it was nice to have a little free time :)

Thursday: We learned more grammar today......my favorite...... Actually grammar is so hard for me I cringe every time we have to do it, which is usually twice a day in each class instruction. We taught Anca our simpatizant(investigator) and her botez (baptism) is on  November 12th. It was our last time teaching her though. My colegul (companion) and I are still counting it as out 1st baptism though :) haha. We shared with her D&C 82:10.

"I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise"

Such a great scripture!! We had to take an assessment thing too on our mission portals. One was about attributes. It asked you these questions, than gave you a 1-5 score. It asked you to try and improve any attribute. So I've decided to work on diligence because I seem to get distracted a lot and that was my lowest score. 

Friday: We did coaching today where the teacher takes you and your companion out and just talks about what is going on and how we are doing in our studies and what not, what we need to improve on things like that. We recognized some things that we needed to improve on. I was just always focused on what I had to say and wrote it down so I wasn't focusing much on the Spirit. We read a quote by Elder Holland in PMG on page 185. That got me thinking a lot. We also watched part of this film  about someone getting baptized. Then talked about how we felt. Someone said they felt joy and happiness of course but then said that this is what God and Jesus must feel like when someone gets baptized. We just get a little pinch of that happiness for a second. I really liked that incite.

Saturday:Today we had one of my favorite lessons. We watched a video of the temple celebration and temple dedication for the Ukraine Temple which is Romania's temple. It was so touching. Our teacher was actually in Romania at that time. He said we cant grasp that amount of hope that was felt there. Having all these nations come together for one thing was really touching! I don't think there was a dry eye in the room. The Spirit was so strong!!! We then proceeded to write a letter to ourselves to open in 6 months about the kind of missionary that we want to be then. I'll just share a little bit of what mine said..

     "I want to be able to give hope to everyone I teach. Hope that there is something out there for each and every one of them, Something that can help them overcome anything they are facing, The hope that through Christ they can do anything. Having them understand Heavenly Father loves them, To comprehend that Christ came and suffered for us. That's how much he loves us"

 After watching that video it made me even more excited to go share this gospel with  those who have never heard it before!

Sunday-Tuesday: Honestly these days were kind of blurr. We started teaching a new investigator, Christian. It went okay. I think the most frustrating thing is having all these thing I want to say but I cant because I don't know how to say them in Romanian. I does make us rely more on the Spirit though and increases our faith. So there is good and bad. Our teacher shared a scripture in D&C 18:15-16 It was sooooo good. 

"And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! 

And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!"

We talked about that even if that one soul is ourselves "how great shall be our joy" Also Alma 29:9-10 (well i liked all of chapter 29)........... AHHHH It is so GREAT! such good word to use!!! 

"I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy."

Especially verse 10. 

"And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me."

I cant wait for that day when I see an investigator light up with the light of Christ. I just........ What a great day that will be. It will make all the bad and hard days worth it

Wednesday (today): We actually got to go to the temple this morning and someone in our zone from Canada brought all these names with him. So as a zone we all got a name and did different things. It was such a cool experience that we got to do that all together. 

Sora Tanner & I matched on Sunday..

& then we swithched jackets!

Funny Moment of the Week:

So I forgot how it came up, or why I did it, but everyone LOVES my northern accent! I get requested to do it..A LOT!!! So Hahahaha Carole! They say it is good too!! Elder Brown (who is from Utah) does a really good one too! So we just go back and forth it is super fun and everyone seems to enjoy it! It is funny when we try to say Romanian things in that accent :P

Really cool Spiritual Experience:

One Sister in my district had a really bad stomach problem so she went the doctors. It was pretty serious! He said if it didn't get better than she would have to go to the Hospital to have surgery. The Doctor gave her something to hopefully help. She came back to class and our Elders gave her a blessing. It was such a cool experience!!! It was some of their first times giving a blessing. It worked almost immediately and she didn't have to go to the hospital. Probably the coolest experience so far! Very cool to be surrounded by missionaries!

Well I love you all  so much!!!! 

Let me know if you like the way I did it this time... I might change it up a little next time..

Until next Wednesday!!!

Love, Sora Bynum

All Romanin all the time

  Wow the 1st week has already passed!! Some days it goes by fast and some days it goes by slow. having to wake up  for gym at 5:50 is no bine (good). My teachers only speak to us in Romanian so that is something that I was not expecting!!! I've only heard them speak to us in English a few times!! If only we could have a picture of all our faces on the 1st day trying to comprehend what they were saying!! It would be so funny!! Even now it is funny. They were tying to explain to us what coaching was, we didn't understand, so they tried again still in Romanian though.... We never got it :P On day 3 we started to teach an investigator aka one of our teachers, but we had to teach her ALL in Romanian. Lets just say there was  A LOT of laughing and hand gestures!!

  

My companion is pretty awesome she is from Texas, well all over really. We get only nicely which is good cause we have to be with each other all the time haha. 

Everyone in my district is AWESOME!!! We all have such a great time together! There are 5 Sisters and 4 Elders. So girls pretty much rule!!

   We have class about 6 hours a day all together in our classroom! We are in our classroom all day really. The classroom gets really boring after a while, but I love learning everything they are teaching, even if I don't understand half of what they are saying :P One of my teachers though is actually from Romania so that was exciting to hear! 

   We've taught Anca (our investigator) aka teacher about 4 times now and she wants to get baptized so that is good!!! We have one more lesson with her tomorrow so we have to plan a lesson!! I'm not sure what we are going to teach her. We went in yesterday with our lesson planned for the Restoration. but she had questions on baptism so we had to switch our whole lesson!! Which was really hard to do in Romanian when we can only say a few phrases. I think it went okay though. She had one question that we didn't understand so she just drew a picture for us. IT was a great drawing! we hung it in our classroom. 

   Nothing out of the Ordinary has really happened. Well I guess for me it wouldn't be out of the ordinary anymore anyway. I love wearing my name tag!! It's weird when I don't have it on now. We had a devotional last night and the speaker told us that our name tag is a license for us to open our mouths and speak to people, that people will be expecting us to do so. 

Funny Moment of the week:

There were so many but I guess I will just choose the one that made us all laugh for like an hour.

We were in our classroom supposed to be doing some kind of study but we had had a long long day and were just talking. Then we realized we needed to clean our room for inspection. Elder Duker (district leader) and his companion Elder Anderson went to go get the vacuum. You have to realize Elder Duker is a very serious person who took Latin for like 8 years and is always asking these questions that no one gets haha.  They come back in with the vacuum and goggles...

Elder Duker: Due to liability anyone using the vacuum or with in 10 ft of the vacuum has to wear these goggles. 

that got us going forever!!

Also just another quick one

The teacher was going around asking everyone what they were doing to prepare or what they were doing to study...

Elder Bonner: Reading the Dictionary

Teacher: Yeah that's not very effective 

Our district has so much fun!!!! but we learn a lot too!!!

I love you ALL!!!

Can't wait to hear from you all!!

Everything is GREAT!! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!!

Love, Sora Bynum

Off to the MTC

Yesterday Dad & I were able to see Sister Bynum off at the airport for one last goodbye. It was an early morning...6:18am to be exact. Well, thats when Sister Bynum woke me up anyway.. Haha. Then it was off to the airport so she could make her 10 o'clock flight!

While waiting for her plane to get there we met an Elder on his way home from Brazil..poor Elder Hawkes had been traveling for a whopping 22 hours! It was funny because you could tell he was still thinking in Portuguese while we were discussing his mission. I couldn't help but wonder what Sister Bynum is going be like when she gets home. I really hope she comes home with a THICK authentic Romanian accent... Haha! :)

Sistah KK (as she is affectionately known at home) was fidgety with excitement the whole time we were sitting at her gate! It was just too cute! She tried so hard not to shed tears when it was time for the final goodbye... But with these faces around you...How could she?

I quickly snagged this cheese-tastic photo of Father & daughter before the plane started boarding--no tears yet!

Then Dad grabbed these FABULOUS photos of my sweet companion & me! Actually he took about 70.. But I wont subject you to ALL of the awfulness. This attractiveness should be enough! :)

After our early morning photo session we shipped her off to Utah for her last night of freedom! Sister Bynum met up with family for dinner and a sleepover with one of her favorite sisters, Elena!

Elena treated Sistah KK to what looks like a cute sister date before she headed off to the MTC (missionary training center)! I stole this photo from Facebook. Can you blame me? They're real precious..haha

I know Sister Bynum was so excited to start her 18 month journey today! 

& even more excited to get the coveted name tag!

If you guys would like to write her but don't know how there are so many ways to get in touch with her! 

• Email-- Katie.Bynum@myldsmail.net
• DearElder.com -- If you have any questions just ask me!
• Snail Mail

          Sister Katie Ann Bynum

          NOV26 ROM-MLD

          2009N 900E Unit 135

          Provo, UT 84602

The next post should be from our beautiful missionary! Do you guys have any questions you'd like me to ask her?

XoXo, Ryan :)

The adventure begins!

Okay guys..here we go!
Sister Bynum's journey is juust about to get started & we are so excited at the Bynum household!
The preparation before she leaves has been crazy!

Packing.
Shopping.
More packing.
Errands!
Goodbyes.
Mooore shopping.

..I think we finally got everything--but

Its been insane!

Today we took a nice break from the stress and took some pre-mission photos! We also had a little family get together! Sister Bynum got to pick her favorite meal for her "Last Supper"..Texas style enchiladas, a Meredith classic! It was delicious as usual & so were the cakes Dad brought home from the bakery!

After the goodbyes were said..Hugs were given..And tears were shed it was time for her to be set apart. Tomorrow she heads off to Utah & then the MTC!!

Thank you guys for all of the love, support, & prayers you have given my beautiful sister! I know she is going to do great things! The people of Romania are so lucky to have such a wonderful spirit headed their way!

 Feel free to email her at katie.bynum@myldsmail.net or send her some goodies while shes in UT

Sister Katie Ann Bynum

NOV26 ROM-MLD

2009N 900E Unit 135 

Provo, UT 84602

Hugs & Kisses...Ryan :)