Sunday, November 19, 2006

This morning I went to church with Shannon and Megan. I was pretty early, but didn’t want to choir, so the only other option was being late to church by going with Shannon and Megan. I missed the first song, so Marina had to conduct and apparently it was hilarious. Elder Sorensen, Marina and a man from the Mission Presidency gave talks. When the guy from the mission presidency got up, he started talking really excitedly and pointing at Marina and Elder Hackett (who had translated for Marina’s talk). Marina was just like, “ah, why is he pointing at me!?!” Then, Hackett told us that he said that he’d really liked Marina’s talk and wanted to get it translated and put it in the mission magazine and also wanted President Popovici to have a young adult fireside and to have her give it then. She was like “wooooah.” Imagine if I’d given my talk while he was there – hehe. He was a really great speaker too and he told this really cool story. Before the revolution he was a really famous Pentecostal preacher. Somehow he got like 500 smuggled Bibles and he started passing them out secretly to people. Well, while he was out passing them out the police arrested he and his wife. They were in jail for two days and the whole time he was really worried about his kids and how they were going to eat and stuff. After two days they were released, with no other punishment (veeery unusual) and just told not to do it anymore. When they got home his kids were sitting at the table and the table was filled with all kinds of food. Apparently when he converted he converted his entire congregation too. I’d have loved to talk to him more. During Sunday School I looked through this mission cookbook that Elder Hackett had with a bunch of recipes you can make from the stuff that they have in Romania. I also started thinking about the Italy trip, which Shannon and I need to get working on. The man from the presidency joined us in relief society too and at one point he got up and like went off on something having to do with the lesson and he was just such a good speaker and I just really liked him. He was such a good guy. After church Holly, Jessica, Abbi, Marina and I went to Sora Genoveva’s for lunch/dinner. It was…interesting. For one thing, it was really awkward, because you could tell she had no clue what to do with us and we had no clue what to do with ourselves afterward. Plus, she didn’t eat with us, she just sat us down in the family room (where he son was right next to us playing computer games the whole time but never talked to us) and served us. And at the end when she did come in, we’d try and talk, but it was really awkward and difficult. Plus, she’s no ordinary Romanian. Like, with most Romanians, you eat everything they put in front of you and offer lots of praise and tell them it was amazing and everything. Well, we’d tell her that and she’d be like, “well, would you have the courage to tell me if it wasn’t?” Ha ha. Fun times. She’s like cynical and very outright with it. Also, I ate soooo much food. Welcome to Romanian meals. To start of with she gave us bread with this stuff called “Salata de Finetti” that you’re supposed to spread on it. I had like 4 or 5 pieces of that. Then, she came out with soup, which I had two bowls of. Then, she gave us each a plate with liver (ick) and mashed potatoes. Then there were also some pickles, prajitura (kiiiind of like brownies, but not) for dessert (they’re little and diamond shapes and I had about 6 of them) and lastly, flower juice (which was a lot better than it sounds and homemade) which I had 3 glasses of. And I’m small. In between being served, when she would walk back into the kitchen, we’d all talk and discuss it and encourage each other to just keep eating and such. Like I said before, after eating she actually came in for a while and talked to us and we had a nice awkward time of it. Finally it ended and we all went over to Scala for dinner (which none of us ate) and our meeting. The meeting talked a lot about money, our schedule this week and plans for leaving. We will probably also take a trip to somewhere in Transylvania (likely Cluj, Timisoara or Sibiu) in the very beginning of December. Tuesday next week is Mihai from Dacie 7th and Jessica’s bdays. We are going out to dinner at Little Texas right after Dacie for Jessica’s. Thursday is Thanksgiving, but we are going to celebrate in on Sunday instead. Each of us is going to make something and bring it to the Villa after church and we’re going to eat around the Ping Pong table. I’m bringing Peach Cobbler. Ok, so the program is ever quicker coming to an end and it’s really weird. I am excited and dreading it at the same time. I wish I could just go here and there whenever I want to. Since Marina can no longer go to Italy early with me I won’t be leaving Iasi til the 16th and I will then leave Bucharest on the 17th. That week everyone will be living in Scala and Podul will only be used if we want the internet. We can all still go to the hospital and the apartments, but the girls at the orphanage won’t be going. It’ll be so hard. And I feel like I have so much to get done before then. So many little things aaand so many big things. I want to have pictures of everything, I want to have learned as many Romanian songs as I can, I want to go to Copou again and the cemetery again, I want to learn how to make certain Romanian foods and just so many more things. I also want to get as much homework done as possible and I need to plan Italy, and look for a job and an apartment I Provo. I hate this feeling. I want to just have a leisurely experience and be able to get out of it what I want to get out of it instead of what other people want me to get out of it because of homework.