do I have permission?

Bună friends! I hope you all had a great week! 

Here's some quick highlights since I dont have a ton of time! 

- had an exchange on Wednesday! Got to be with Sora Folkman, she was trained by my same trainer so that was fun! 

-on the exchange my companion taught our friend Oana and put her on baptismal date! December 13th! 

- we taught a cute kids english class! 

- we have been on the streets A LOT! and it has been so fun! We meet so many interesting people :

 — one told my comp to stay in romania and marry her son 

— one old lady played with my comps curly hair 

— got told it isn't nice and that I dont have permission to talk to people on the street, same lady compared me to a orthodox missionary (they don't exist) 

— a lot of people who dont speak romanian recently oddly enough 

- helped a member input some new family names into family search so she could take them to the temple! So crazy how romanians have so much family history to do and how it's all immediate family members 

- visited a member family! So funny. It was a mom and daughter and it felt like listening to a podcast haha. The conversation actually went everywhere too and it was hilarious. 

-visited our friend Jasmin at her house! She's 13 and we met her parents! She is awesome and literally comes to everything on her own, it's awesome! 

-had a member lesson with our friend Daniel! Gave him a church tour and lowk stood the whole time by the baptism font haha 

- Sunday we had a few friends at church! The relief society was so nice to Oana and made her feel welcome and she loved it

- lowk so rainy and cold so rip 

Scripture time :

"for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me" 

I've been thinking about being content with what the Lord has given me recently. I'm going to deeply miss my mission when I go home in just a few short weeks but I'm grateful He has given me last 18 months and being content with knowing He has given me just these 18 months has helped me with the sadness of leaving. He has worked wonders this past year and half and I'm grateful for the next few weeks to see it unfold and to continue to grow as a disciple of His at home. I know Lord has a plan for all of us and has given all things to us for just a reason. 

Sorry for the short email and thought, I have much more to say about my week and about this scripture but just not a lot of time! I love you all! Have the best Thanksgiving ever!!! Eat a lot and watch a lot of football! I love and I'm thankful for all of you!! Happy Thanksgiving! 

Love sam

mountains, laughs, Maria's and reunions

BUNĂ FRIENDS! I miss and love you all! 

This week was such a highlight. Here's a few  

Tuesday:

☆ had an amazing fun last day in Sibiu with Sora Mansfield and last little day as sml 

☆met with our friend Vica and she made us crepes and it was adorable, the hardest part of leaving Sibiu is leaving the people. I met some of my favorite people here and it was such a hard goodbye. Loved my time in this beautiful little city. It was a blessed few transfers and some of my favorite times. The miracles we saw were incredible and I'll forever love the people here. 

Wednesday

☆spent a fun lil day in București! Got some amazing Greek food and saw some mission friends! Super sad I am starting to have to say goodbye to so many people I love and so many friends. 

☆ took a fun lil train to my new city of Brasov with the other sisters! 

Thursday 

☆ my first day with Sora Pack! She is actually pure joy and I have never laughed harder in my life. I'm in for the best and funniest transfer ever. 

☆ we had some fun STL plans to make for this transfer so that took some of the day lol but it was good! 

☆ had a cute lesson with our friend Jasmin! She is the cousin of a member here and my comp had a little miracle to help get her to church so its been so fun to teach her. She read some of the book of mormon and is loving all the things about baptism and being save. Beautiful. 

☆ we've lowkey been on the contact GRIND! contacting our friends daily has been awesome but leaves us with a crazy amount of calls each night haha

☆ we also streeted over to the church from our apartment-- who was gonna tell me we live 3 miles away. Casually walking 3 miles (or more) at a time is something I've gotten so used to as a missionary but when you think of it, it's kinda crazy haha. But had some fun times. And got handed a cigarette. My comp found it hilarious hahah. 

Friday: 

☆ fun district council with lunch at the senior couples! 

☆ more fun finding! More phone calls! 

☆ visited an inactive member who is so cute and tender! 

☆ everyone we streeted these past few days has been named Maria and that was super funny lol 

Saturday : 

☆ best part of the day was visiting our new member family! This family got baptized a little bit ago and we are ministering to them and helping them come to church. They live a little bit outside of town so we drove there with the senior couple and had a really good lesson. They have 7 kids so it was a little crazy but so fun. 

Sunday: 

☆ ok holy. Sunday was awesome. I'm now serving in the biggest branch in the country and it is actually amazing. I traded my tender little 10 person branch in a small cute little house church for 70+ people in an actual chapel. Small branches and those members actually have my heart and serving in small branches is truly so amazing, but I will say I loved pulling up to church in an actual building with a lot of members, it gets me excited for the church growing in romania. Also the members here are fantastic and have the biggest hearts. It'll be sad to only get 5 weeks here. 

☆ we had some friends at church! We also had a super cool miracle of a lady just walking into church and she told us she looked us up online. Turns out she looked up the Baptist church next door but she walked into ours. But it all worked out because she loved it and we are meeting again on Wednesday! Pray for Oana! 

☆ besides that we went finding and had some fun times! 

Truly these past few days have been so blessed. Surrounded by mountains, laughing with Sora Pack(we are actually dying laughing 24/7) and working super hard. We are actually grinding our last little bit and its been so awesome. I'm so excited for this next little bit! I'm also serving with 3 other people who I started my mission with so its a fun little mtc reunion over here in Brașov haha. Basically the best time ever and I'm feeling so happy and blessed to be a missionary! 

Quick little spiritual thought! :

This is long so I'll be short, but I've been thinking a lot about prayer. I feel like as a missionary I always have a lot on mind and a lot of things going on and to worry about and turning to Heavenly Father in prayer has been the biggest support these past 16 months. I know God answers all of our prayers. The formal ones on our knees and even the ones quickly said in our heads and hearts. God loves you and I love you! 

Love sami

Conference in Bucarest 

New comp Sora Pack

Brasov sisters

P-day hike in Brasov

New little member bestie, Maria

New baptized family, the Dragan family

Train nap time

Our friend Vica

Our friend Alina in Sibiu

one last ride 🥺🫶

Bună friends! I miss you all and hope you had a great week! To reference the title, this week (Wednesday) I start my last transfer, I only have 5 weeks left in this beautiful country- one last ride! 

Anyways, onto the week. It was kinda a weird one haha. 

On Tuesday we didn't have much. We found some cool new people to teach and had english class! Sibiu has such a fun english class so I don't mind teaching it. We also found out that we would be going to București for MLC on Friday! 

Wednesday was so fun! We had a lesson with our cute friend Elena! She is perfect. We taught about life after death and it answered so many questions of hers and she is so excited for her baptism. I'm so excited for her. We also had to deliver some things to some inactive members so we were out streeting. But it is cold and dark so not a lot of people are out but we really wanted to find a new friend and we were walking in this park and someone was at the playground and we said kinda jokingly "welp if they are out late and in the cold then they probably will want to come to church with us this Sunday." And she wanted to come! It's so fun haha. Vivi is cute, pray for her! 

Thursday was where the week got wild! We had district council and then had to head to București for mlc! We were driving over to a station for a van to drive us there and then we hit major traffic and were getting late so we called the company and asked if they could wait and they said we had 10 minutes which was all we needed. So we speed there and get there in 7 minutes and we pull up and it's literally like a sprinter van and we are the only ones riding it. But the driver is yelling at us for being late and belittling us and said "it would do you better to be punctual" after he literally said we were ok. I got a little defensive and luckily my comp came in and stopped the convo haha. He also yelled at us at the end of the trip for having our bags at our feet and was super passive aggressive again so definitely not my most fav day. 

Luckily Friday was better! We had mlc and I got to see some mission friends! I also had to say bye to some people I won't see again which is sad. But I got to have a mini exchange with Sora Harris(my greenie) and it was so fun! She is all grown up now We took a bus home that night that left at 9 and got us back at 1 am so that was rough hahah. 

Saturday we had fun games night and finding! Also transfer news! My last one- crazy! I thought I was for sure staying here in Sibiu for my last transfer but shocker- I'm moving! Im leaving to go to Brasov to be with Sora Pack from my mtc group! So fun to be together for our last transfer! She is pure joy and all things good! I'm excited to work hard and have a lot of fun this transfer! However, it's sad to leave Sibiu. This city has my heart and some of my favorite people. Our friend Elena will be baptized next transfer and I can't wait! I'm so grateful for my 3 months in Sibiu and all the miracles we saw! I'll definitely miss this place and my companion, Sora Mansfield but I know this branch will continue to blossom and grow so fast so soon! 

Sunday we had a lot of friends at church! Most of them loved it. We had district conference and the broadcast was goofy and not great so not everyone loved it but a lot did and we had 10 friends at church here in Sibiu! Such an amazing day. I loved it. Also met some super awesome people on the street and I'm excited to hear if they come to church. 

Spiritual thought: 

I've been reading in the book of mormon where Alma, Amulek and the sons of Mosiah all are sharing the gospel. There is one chapter where they aren't having a ton of success. But God still said that He is proud of their efforts, no matter the outcome. God knows and sees all of our efforts and He is proud of what we bring to the table. He sees effort and nothing is wasted. He loves you! 

Anyways, I love you guys! Here's to one last adventure in another beautiful city! 

Love sami! 

In the van on the way to Bucharest

MLC-With my MTC girls

Sora Later

Church in Sibiu