I LOVE CLUJ!!!

 Buna ziua tuturor!!

I hope you all had a great week this week! This week for me was full of learning, growing, and many many happy moments!! In my personal studies I read two talks that really helped lift my spirits when things were feeling tough this week! One of the talks was sent to me by my sweet mother! It is a talk by Sister Bonnie H. Cordon called, "Trust in the Lord and Lean Not" . In her talk she shares ways in which we can better center our lives in Christ and not lean to our own understanding or knowledge. She gives three principles on how to do this that really stood out to me! 1. We can come to know the Lord and trust Him as we feast upon the words of Christ. 2. We can come to know the Lord and trust Him through prayer. 3. We can come to know the Lord and trust Him as we serve others! I LOVE all three of these points so much and really tried to implement them more into my life this week. In her talk she shares a story about a lady who found out she had a rare type of cancer with only 17% survival rate and the chemo was starting to become unbearable. One night she told her husband that she could not go on any longer, she no longer wanted to do chemo and she was going to give up! That is when he replied to her by saying, "Well, then we need to find someone to serve." At first she couldn't believe he would suggest such a thing in the state that she was in but. . .long story short. . .she found that as she served others she was able to find that the pain was more bearable. She says,

"When I thought about myself, my situation, my suffering and pain, the world became very dark and depressing. When my focus turned to others, there was light, hope, strength, courage, and joy. I know that this is possible because of the sustaining, healing, and enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus  Christ."

Ahh, I love that so much!! It really helped remind me that I need to strive to look outwards and serve others when I am feeling sad and down. By doing that I know I will be strengthened!

The other talk I read was called, "One More Day" by Elder Godoy. In this talk he shares ways we can become more in Christ through sacrifice: 1. Personal sacrifice strengthens us and gives value to the things we sacrifice for. 2. Sacrifices we make for others, and that others make for us, result in blessings for all. 3. Any sacrifice we make is small compared to the sacrifice of the Son of God. This talk was a good reminder of how blessed we all are!! I am so grateful for all those in my life who have sacrificed things for me!! Soooo grateful!

This week we had exchanges in Oradea! We had to take a 2 1/2 hour train at 11pm so we didn't get to the other sisters' house till 1:30am. I used to go to bed at that time all the time but man I was tired I felt dizzy! As soon as my head hit my pillow, I was out!!

Oradea was so pretty! And in the morning we went for a run to this little park and around the outskirts of this park was a strip of track material to run on!! It was so cool! I would love to serve there sometime during my mission!

Also, this week the senior couple got covid so I made two kinds of soup that day, some creamy wild rice soup for them and that night I also made a chicken cheddar broccoli soup!! It was soooo yummy😍

I love Cluj so much! There is a good chance I will get transferred this next transfer and that makes me soo sad! I love the people here so much! This week we got to go to Sora Szeps house and we just sat around her table and talked for over an hour! While talking with her we got on the topic of food (one of my favorite topics) and she started pulling out all these little snacks she likes! It was so much fun, my favorite was when she brought out these cheeses to try and homemade pickles!! I LOVE pickles! And Romania does not have the best pickle selection here so that was so happy for me!! She then said she also had something for me and brought me a jar of homemade spaghetti sauce!! I almost cried! We had talked about my love for homemade spaghetti sauce back at the beginning of December. . . and she remembered! That was so nice of her! I had so much fun as she was showing us these foods she had made, and then she brought us outside and showed us the meat that she had stored in her shed and her green house! It made me so happy that she was so excited to show us everything!

On the way back to our apartment from her home, by the bus station we were waiting at, was a little Korean Market. We went inside and it made me so happy!! It reminded me of my Daddio. As I looked around they had this curry that my dad has made for us, they had sriracha sauce (which I was so excited for because they don't have a lot of spicy foods here), and they had Kimchi!!! I bought all of those things and when I got home I made some fried rice to eat with the Kimchi and sriracha sauce!! It was delicious and brought me so much joy! Haha

The last highlight of my week was on Sunday when the Lepure family came back to church after being sick for almost a month! It was so nice to see them all and the boys were so happy to be back! It also made my heart so happy! It felt like seeing family, little Patrick was so excited he could not help himself and he was just bouncing off the walls! haha It honestly brightened my day so much being able to give Sora Lepure a great big hug and to sit and talk with the boys about how everything has been the past few weeks! Cluj has 100% become my home and the people here have become family! My heart breaks every time I have to leave somewhere, especially when I have made such strong connections! I know that when I have to leave Cluj it is going to be a very sad day! For now, I am soaking up every moment I have here and making the most of every second!

Love you all so much and miss you tons!! Să aveți o săptămână foarte bună!😊💗(have a very good week!)

~Sora Acton

Oradea with Sister Johnson!

She is the sweetest, had so much fun

spending the day with her!

Sora Wenstrom and I waiting outside the Oradea Sisters' apartment at 1:40am because they were not waking up. . . .haha

Pretty building in Oradea

pretty sunrise from my early morning

balcony workouts💪

all the stuff I bought at the

Korean Market

A cool oil and vinegar bottle

from a restaurant we ate at

the stem and top part of the orange

Patrick was eating that he gave

to me. . . . how sweet😆😆

Sora Szeps Meat Shed

Homemade salsa and spaghetti sauce