Three Days Until the Real Mission

Hello Friends and Family!!

Basically, this whole week was just our district becoming more and more excited to get to Romania and everything else becoming harder and harder to concentrate on. We leave Monday morning at 4:20 and don't get to Romania until 1 PM (Romania time) on Tuesday. So I think I'll have like 15 hours of time to read the Cartea Lui Mormon and PMG. Life of a missionary :) But guys I'm so excited to get there and meet the people and see the country and eat the food and learn more of the language!

I just want everyone to understand that when we say we are going to Romania, we are not going to a city in Italy. Especially when we say we are speaking Romanian. They actually speak Italian in Italy believe it or not. Haha I can't believe how many people here get confused between Rome and Romania, it's pretty funny.

Ok, the highlight of this week was on Monday when we had the opportunity to skype a member of the church in Ias, Romania!! Her name is Lidia and she is this cute cute old lady who lives alone in this small house with cute purple floral walls and a floral print refrigerator (that was all we could see haha). Anyways it was so fun to actually teach someone from Romania (not just skyping returned missionaries living in Orem). It was so fun, she was so fun to talk to, and was so nice to speak Romanian so slowly for us. :) She told us that she goes into surgery this next week and when we said we were sorry for her, she said, "Don't be sorry, be glad because the surgery is making me better!" Anyways I hope that someday I can be as cute and kind and optimistic as Lidia, cause she is awesome and made our week!

The Provo temple finally reopened! I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to go this morning, especially since it's the last time that I will go for the next 18 months. I love love love going to the temple, and I also love eating breakfast at the cafeteria haha! Super yummy omelets. 

I miss you all! I hope all is well! I can't wait to tell you all about Romania next week!! So excited!!

Numai bine,

Sora Ebert

Pictures: 

The Italian missionaries found a wearable Romanian flag for us? 

We took one last photo with our whole zone before the Italians left

We learned in a fishbowl this week!

Hello and buna seara friends and family!!

To be honest, not too much happened this week. Time is flying faster and faster- we hopefully get our flight plans tonight!! Ahh we are so sad to leave all our teachers and friends in a week, but also so incredibly excited to meet the people of Romania and get to work! Our teachers tell us everyday how amazing Romania is, so I'm so ready to go and finally eat delicious food! (I will miss the brownies here though). 

One major update on the MTC though is that they are hosting open houses! Right now it's just for BYU and MTC employees and their friends and families, but right after I leave the public one opens up. Basically it's thousands of people each afternoon and evening walking past our classroom and watching us learn as they tour the campus. Our classroom is made of beautiful windows, so we make jokes about "Please, do not tap on glass. It startles the missionaries." Or, "Please, do not feed the missionaries." Haha but it's so fun to see all these cute families come through and the new campus is so beautiful, I'm so glad they get to see it! 

No one knows, why, but this week they have had us move classrooms twice. So some mornings we come to class and there's a notice to move all of our stuff out of our desks and hike to the other side of the building until we are told to move again. Super weird and unusual, but quite the adventure. 

My teacher Brother Brundage told us about Romanian history this past week! One day he was talking about the revolution. Literally Romania had a revolution only like 25 years ago, and everyone there fought in the revolution or at least totally remembers it. Guys this is not just a minor upset. Like 25 years ago people were being dragged into the streets and killed, or hiding in bathtubs from the fighting! Crazy stuff. Most people think the government now is better than communism was, though it's still super corrupt. But don't worry!! Romania is super safe now and I'm so excited to talk to all the people that remember what it was like under communism and what it was like to overthrow the government! Super cool!

Also, you guys should all look up the Romanian anthem with English subtitles, it's super funny. It makes the Romanians seem like war hungry barbarians or something. (Which they aren't, I promise).

Guys I'm so sorry but I don't have pictures again!! Honestly, I don't know what I could take pictures of in the MTC that is all that interesting, and I never have my camera on me. But I promise, once I am in Europe in a week and a half I will take so many beautiful pictures of all the awesome buildings and parks and people and food and everything!! 

I love you all, and I miss you tons! Life is so good here, I love it. I know that I am doing God's work and that He is helping me- I feel His love every day! I hope you all are well; you are in my prayers!

Cu drag multe,

Sora Ebert

Never say foot to a Romanian

Buna ziua friends and family!!!

This week flew by; I feel like I was emailing you guys yesterday!! We hit our MTC halfway mark on Wednesday-- less than 3 weeks to go now!! Ahh I love it here but to be honest, I'm so excited to get out into the field and meet the people of Romania! 

Also I heard that this last week was both free slurpee day and free Chick-Fil-A; I hope all of you ate enough for me, I really missed out. They do give us Chick-Fil-A once a week here though, so I guess that makes it ok. No 7-11 though. 

Our investigator Daniel is hilarious. He is one of our teachers acting as a teenager he taught in Romania, and definitely has some lit times. He never stops talking about his funny life, and our first lesson went 20 minutes of him talking super fast before we had two seconds to share a sentence on the Cartea Lui Mormon. Then he ushered us out "cause he had no more time." He asked me about how I go to the U and my companions go to BYU, and I started talking about how Utah football is the best. Anyways, the word "foot" is a very offensive Romanian swear word, so you can imagine how that went. He honestly wouldn't stop laughing at us for the rest of the lesson, and he loves to make fun of the missionaries. But it was hilarious. 

Our zone got to host the new missionaries this week and it was super fun! We all forgot sunblock and got burned, but it actually was way fun, and I'm glad I got to do it. I was so sad for all the crying moms, but so so so excited for the new missionaries; they are going to do such great things.

Update on the language: In Romanian we learned that if a word sounds weird, you change it. If you don't like the word order of a sentence, you can just switch it almost any way you want. Also if you don't want to say a word, take it out of the sentence. There are a million Romanian words for one English word, and one Romanian word for a million English words. It is hard but so fun, and the point of the language is to sound pretty, and I love it. I know the Gift of Tongues is real. We pray so hard all day every day for help with the language, and study so hard during every moment, and God is helping us! I am amazed at how quickly the language is coming, it is so awesome.

I hope all of you are well! I think about you everyday, and love you all!

Cu drag,

Sora Ebert

 Sister Quibley is so cute and loves to draw all of us on the board, so we took a pic

Elder Cloward's younger sister made us all Romanian flag bracelets!! So cute!

Our picture to commemorate our halfway point. The romanian flag is the one in the far right corner

Olympus High reunion!! This is maybe 10% of the Oly population at the MTC, I see people here all the time

One week down, 77 more to go!

Buna ziua familie si prietenii!!

This week was awesome! So much has happened, I wish you were all here with me to experience it! (Feel free to sneak in and join me lol-- jkjk that is definitely a joke) 

Many funny things happened haha many of which are probably "you just had to be there;" I wish I had space to tell them all. First of all, in class on Monday we were a bit distracted and our teacher Sora Trebas used a Romanian expression meaning "let's gather the sheep." Anyways what I thought she said was "Let's pray now" so I stood up and closed my eyes and folded my arms ( we always stand in a circle ). Anyways now I am constantly teased every time our teacher needs to "gather the sheep." Super fun ;)

I cannot roll my Rs haha. Romanian is going well, except for the fact that every R is rolled and 70% of the words seem to have multiple Rs in them. Our teacher is trying to teach me, but it's so hard and I'm supposed to walk around saying "arrrrrt" all day haha. But the gift of tongues is working and our Romanian is coming along unbelievably fast.

Weird fact about the MTC: they love to sing hymns. And I like to sing hymns too so it's awesome! You think you are singing the opening song of a meeting or devotional when really you are singing hymn 1/5 of the prelude songs before the opening song.

Last of all, I wanted to talk about our amazing devotional on Tuesday! It was the anniversary of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith in case any of you didn't know, and Elder Bednar was coming to speak since all the mission presidents were here being trained! Anyways, we were really confused when Elder Ballard walked in instead of Elder Bednar. Then Elders Cook, Rasband, Stevenson, Holland, Christofferson, Oaks, Anderson, and Renlund walked in!!! Then Elder Bednar came in and spoke. TEN  of the quorum of the twelve apostles walked in and it was so cool! Basically our own General Conference right there. It was amazing to see how important missionary work is to this church that ten of them took the time to be there. We learned so much about the power of God's word and the power of Christ growing within each one of us. So awesome!

Anyways, the MTC is still amazing, still a ton of work, and still so much fun!!!

I love it here and I miss you all.

Cu iubeste,

Sister Emilie Ebert

PS if you want a Romanian tongue twister say this 10x fast:  "Oaia aia-i a ei" (remember to pronounce every letter separately-- it's really hard) it means "that sheep is hers"