Week 2

Hola familia!

CAFETERIA

Mark and his food-loving friends will love the cafeteria. This is how it goes down. You can have milk, chocolate milk, juice, soda, etc. at every meal. Wednesdays and Sundays they have ice cream from the BYU creamery. You can have cereal, toast, or pb&j at every meal. Every Friday night they order pizza. Breakfast always includes bagels and fruit, over-sugared yogurt (which makes me sick dad :( ), and then waffles and pancakes, and some form of hashbrown, eggs, and sausage or bacon. They also have some hot cereals that they change out but it isn't the same as making your own oats.

Lunch and dinner are almost always filled with fun things like hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, chicken nuggets, etc. They also have lots of meat and potato dishes and so on a so forth. There are a vast multitude of desserts including pie, cake, brownies, and cookies at each meal. They also have soups on occasion and a salad bar as well as a bar where you can get a wrap made to your desire.

And it is all that you can eat. It is no wonder that people gain wait here. (Don't worry, so far so good).

GYM

The gym isn't very gym-esque. They have volleyball, foursquare (HELLO fourth grade), and basketball. They have maybe 10 weight machines and about 6 ellipticals and 4 stationary bikes. We aren't allowed to go outside so most of my time is spent running around the track and stretching.

LATVIAN

The language continues to blow my mind. There are over 100 possible noun and adjective endings. The words can sound really similar and you see them with so many different endings that it is hard to point out that it is the same word. Entertaining story: my name tag is wrong. They put the long a sound over the wrong a and so instead of sister it says large mass. On other noteworthy namecalling, the elders in my district have a tendency to call me Elder Lindstrom when they are talking about me to the zone...I don't know if this is a good thing.

LATVIAN CURSE

This week we were informed of the dreaded Latvian curse. Apparently we have a very special and different mission. Not only are there very few people who serve, they all get very close, still hang out for an obnoxiously large amount of their post-mission lives, and get married to each other. My group intends to break this curse (especially since the elders have girlies). Don't worry mom, I DON'T flirt with the elders. I realized how young they were when I say Allen Conners the first day....weird!

TRC

The TRC is the teaching resouce center and generally a missionary's worst nightmare. It is where you practice teaching investigators (and in your language if you are learning one).

DEVOTIONALS

My favorite devotional was on this Tuesday (we have devotionals Tuesday and Sunday nights). Brother Snow of the 70 came and spoke very simply but powerfully. He talked to us about how we bring the message of the Son of God as the shepherds did and how we invite others to come unto Christ. He talked to us about how we are just the conduits that help investigators feel the spirit. He told us that we preside over the changing of hearts.

STUDY

I have been reading conference talks and came upon a really great one that reinforced the idea in my mind that we need to act like what we want to become today. If we sit around waiting to become something then we will become nothing. We should all try to be good people now and be who we want to become.

TODAY

We got to go and clean the temple for three hours. Dearest mother, I luckily didn't have to clean the toilets. I did clean things with a q-tip though. Feel free to check any of the fake ferns for dust. They won't have any because I had the honor of cleaning them. :)

PEOPLE

Ok, here we go

SISTER BAILEY Is this cute blonde southern girl. She has a boyfriend who writes her every day. She has a very strong testimony though her parents are less active. This makes SISTER HUNTINGTON, a wild brown haired very not Californian California girl upset that the boy she is planning on marrying right when she gets home only writes her 2-3 times a week hand written. SISTER SMITH is from Canada and takes being a missionary very seriously. She has graduated from school and doesn't like to be late. Her companion is SISTER BURNHAM from Oregon. She loves politics and doing her hair. I don't think I've seen anyone fix their makeup/hair so much in one day. ELDER BARET was our zone leader. He leaves for Greece with his companion tomorrow. He is this super tall teddy bear. His companion is Elder Greciano. He's Spanish but doesn't look it. He is awesome as well. ELDER MOYE is a Texas sweetheart recent convert. He is definitely from Texas. And that is about all I have time for. You'd be surprised how many elders have girls though. It is nuts!!

Alex left this week. Fun stuff!

Elder Russell M. Nelson and wife with us all weekend and spoke in RS and Priesthood Sunday morning.

I have a testimony of this church. I know that the gospel is true and that this is God's work. He loves us and has created a plan for us to return to him.

Random thought from Elder Baret (Belgian elder going to Greece) "It doesn't matter where you serve, but how."

Dad, Scotland is over his jet lag and we don't let him eat sugar anymore. I'm praying for him lots. I have a hard time teaching with him because he doesn't really study and doesn't like to practice or anything. I am working on loving him and serving him and praying for him though. Gotta love learning experiences.

XOXO

Masa Lindstroma

Week One

Well hello family and friends,

I have survived my first week and the Empty Sea in Provo. It is definitely not what I expected. You have a lot of "Missionary Directed Time" aka teach yourself, so in that sense it is nothing like seminary (I thought they'd teach us gospel things like in seminary). I still think that the food here is rubbish, but it would be heaven for starving 19-year-old boys. As for girls who like to cook and don't like having hamburgers every day at lunch, it is not our most favorite. Gym time is a God-send. I think it is the only time that my brain turns off. Every time I go to sleep I'm teaching investigators or practicing Latvian in my head. We always have gym after lunch or dinner and I have somehow managed to run without puking (albeit the track is 10 laps = a mile so I go rather slow).

I am in a room with 4 other sisters: Sister Smith, Burnham, Bailey, and Huntington. They are all headed off to Armenia. I mostly see them after 9pm. Most of my days are spent with Elder Lynch and Elder Burr. Elder Lynch is having a hard time with the time change so he will stock up on sugar (aka Swedish fish, he's eaten 5 bags or so already) between lunch and dinner. This leaves him totally hyper and quite useless. So far he's sang us Lady Gaga and Metallica on said sugar rushes. Needless to say we are going to ban sugar for him although he still has his 2 glasses of root beer at EVERY meal (yuck!). Aggie ice cream totally beats the BYU creamery.

The Latvian language is crazy intense. There is this evil thing called declension. This means that depending on how you use EVERY noun and EVERY pronoun and EVERY adjective you have to congugate it differently. Talk about thinking before you speak. Luckily Elder Burr has studied German which has cases as well so he is really helpful. The language sounds a lot like Russia meets Italy (at least with the numbers) and then throw in some odd garb and some nordic sounding stuff and voila! Our teachers are really great. We have two teachers who come. They both served in Latvia several years ago. They teach us Latvian grammar concepts as well as gospel things. We are expected to memorize 20 vocabulary words a day as well as memorize 20 scriptures (in Latvian...ha ha) and be speaking in Latvian 24/7 by week six. We'll see how that goes. Right now we can pray in Latvian, ask someone their name and how they are, and we are learning how to congujate things so I could theoretically make my own sentences. About 55% of the people in Latvia speak Latvian, the rest Russian.

My P-days are on Thursdays. We get 30 minutes of email time, as well as time to do laundry and go to the temple.

Some days I like being a "solo" sister more than others. It is nice to not have to deal with a moody girl all the time, but I also have no real agency in where I want to go, I have to follow around whomever is escorting me so I don't even get to plan what I want to do when on P-days. I suppose it will make me appreciate those 3 sisters that I will serve with in Latvia and that when you have a companion you can make decisions together. I definitely wanted a companion last night. On Wednesdays we go and practice teach volunteers for about an hour. I had to teach the first lesson on the restoration all by my lonesome with out a companion to help answer their questions (and they were asking TOUGH questions). Let's just say that I have learned this week that none of my mission experience is for me. Latvian is messing up my French, I don't have a Brother Caldwell or Merrill-esque teacher to teach me more about the gospel, and teaching last night was definitely not fun (and I normally love teaching). Good thing that the church is true! The whole Latvian thing is getting a little bit better as I am trying to submit my will to the Lord, but some days it is still really hard because I still feel this urging need to go and teach the people in France. I feel like my work isn't done there. I think of my experiences of my mini-mission a lot and they help me through the harder days. If Elder Lazarev can learn Chinese, gosh dang it I can learn Latvian. These people deserve to hear the message in their language.

I actually had a really neat thought on my way to the MTC. I was thinking about the Roundy's and Daniel and how all the girls went on missions. I thought about how I was going about to finish my brother's work as well. My brother Jesus Christ is not physically on this earth anymore, but His work isn't done and I need to finish it.

My time is about out. I love you all. Make good choices.

Masa Lindstroma

First Letter

December 16, 2010

Dear Family:

I’m alive! Yes, alive in Provo. The food is mediocre.

My companion rocks. It is myself-LOL. I’m a “solo” sister, so I have no real companion. There are two elders learning Latvian with me: Elder Burr from Arizona and Elder Lynch from Scotland. They are awesome, and super hard workers.

The language is INSANE! Verbs have conjugations and so do nouns and adjectives-and it changes with how you are using the noun/adjective.

About the mission. There are 4 sisters serving in Latvia, and I will be replacing one of them. Only one city (Riga) is open to sisters right now.

The language overwhelms me at times, and the learning how to be a missionary can be boring because I’ve done it! France/mini-mission/Sister Hulet definitely prepared me to be here. I know I can do it once I get the language. I think often of the people I taught in France and my love for them. I still feel such a desire to finish teaching those in France. It can be hard because I still feel like I need to go back there. I guess that would be too easy. The MTC should get better once we are on a normal schedule. As of right now we don’t even have time to breathe.

I ran into Elder Grasley (my cousin) today; it was great. We freaked out everyone around us (i.e we gave each other a hug). My preparation day is Thursdays, so I should get to email next Thursday.

“The Church is true isn’t it, so what else is there?”

Love you,

Masa Lindstroma

Day 1. MTC

We dropped Mari off at the MTC yesterday at 1 PM. She was excited and ready to go. Here is her mailing address at the MTC. She'll be there until February 15, 2011.

Sister Mari Lisa Lindstrom
MTC Mailbox # 140
BALTIC 0215
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

Mission Announcements

Parties:: Murders and Mustaches

To finish catching up on October, Amber and I held a most excellent murder mystery dinner party. I have always wanted to go to one, but have never had the opportunity, so I decided to make my own up. I created character bios and clues to reveal or conceal during each dinner course for each guest. Everyone came dressed up as different characters and we played parlor games until one of the guests (Miss Jane Body) was murdered. Mr. and Mrs. Peacock, Professor Plum, Mr. Green, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, and Miss Scarlet then tried to solve the murder mystery over a scrumptious dinner of salad, soup, bread, chicken cordon bleu, and my amazing new recipe find, the almond pear cake. We had each guest bring something for dinner and we had a marvelous time!

The invite

The guests

Just this past weekend we also had a mustache/evil dictator party. Everyone came as different dictators and we had a blast eating cupcakes with mustaches (created by the wonderful Miss Amber and myself) and playing games like Curses, pin the mustache on Hitler, and The Game of Things.

Steve Jobs, Omar al-Bashir, and Joseph Stalin

Adolf Hitler, Kim Jong-Il, and Evil Sheriff Billy Bob

Halloween

I thought it might be noteworthy to show my different Halloween costumes this year. I went to quite a few parties, so I had some different costumes.

Party 1: YSA Dance
Red Crayon and "Gnome" Chomsky the Garden Gnome
It was really awkward dressing up as a boy and trying to dance like a girl. I'm glad I don't have facial hair normally.
My madre made the fantastic red crayon costume Amber is wearing.

Party 2: SigEp 20s Dance
2os Nerd and Flapper
Amber was born in the wrong decade, I swear she was made for the twenties!

Party 3: The Howl
Red Crayon and Christine "I am not a witch" O'Donnell (If you don't get my costume: click here to see the video that made this crazy tea-party goer SNL skit material)
This was definitely my favorite costume, but I don't know if anyone got it other than myself and the poli-sci majors...

recipe:: 1 can, 3 pumpkin treats

I took some of these cookies to my ceramics class and everyone was pleasantly surprised at their perfect moistness and not too pumpkin-y taste.

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1 egg

FROSTING

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups confectioners' sugar

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F . Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool cookies, then drizzle glaze with fork.

To Make Glaze: Combine confectioners' sugar, milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add milk as needed, to achieve drizzling consistency.

Muffins that combine the wonderful texture of apples with the warm taste of pumpkin. A simple streusel topping gives them a little something extra. You won’t even know you’re eating something good for you.

Apple Streusel Muffkins

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup wheat flour

1 cup quick oats

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup canned pumpkin puree1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup applesauce

2 cups peeled, cored and chopped apple

Streusel

1 cup quick oats

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease muffin cups or use paper liners.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, oats, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, pumpkin, oil, and applesauce. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; stirring just to moisten. Fold in apples. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

In a small bowl, mix together streusel ingredients. Sprinkle topping evenly over muffin batter.

Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

I loooove pumpkin pie, so I thought, why not try cheesecake!

Easy No-bake Pumpkin Cheesecake

CRUST

2 1/2 cups gingersnaps, crushed

1/3 cup melted butter

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

FILLING

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

2-2 1/2 cups whipped topping, thawed

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

Mix crushed gingersnaps with melted butter and spices. Press crumb mixture into pie tin.

Beat cream cheese, pumpkin, sugar, and pumpkin pie spice with an electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Gently stir in the whipped topping.

Spoon cream cheese mixture into crust.

Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight.

music:: Andrew Belle and others

Andrew Belle is probably one of my new favorites that I wished I listened to more. His voice is absolutely enchanting. I dare you to listen to any of his songs and see if you don't love it.

Greg Laswell is another artist that I recently found. One of his more upbeat made for radio songs is Take Everything, although he can slow it down in songs like Goodbye.

Stornoway reminds me of a lot of Kirstin's favorite artists. It is something like The Decemberists meet Mumford and Sons. This song, I Saw You Blink is pretty fun.
Now you'll know what I'll be listening to this week!

Weird name, but great music is coming from Landon Pigg. Being a girl, his Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop melts my heart, but his music can be a lot more versatile, with songs like Can't Let Go. Pigg is definitely a heartthrob when it comes to lyrics.

Here is a song worth a listen, Love is Not a Fight by Warren Barfield. Barfield was going to get a divorce with his wife of three years but then they decided to work it out and he wrote this excellent song, which is now in my guitar playing repitoire.

For those of you who are brave and don't mind potty words I love the Creep Radiohead cover sung by a Belgian children's choir by Scala & Kolacny Brothers. I heard this song on the new Facebook movie preview.

Paddle Surfing Lessons Learned

11 foot foam board

The fast Epoxy board

Tonight I went paddle surfing under the moon with a whole lake practically to myself! I was extremely excited about the chance to surf in Utah since we have no ocean! Stand up paddle boarding is a little bit like surfing except for you have a different board, and obviously, a paddle. My friend Amber and I went with the awesome company www.utahpaddlesurfing.com . They really took care of us and we had a great time trying out different boards and surfing around the Great Salt Lake by Saltair on this full moon paddle.

It really is quite and exhilarating and empowering experience. Being out on the water and being able to overlook the entire area was really neat. It is really hard to explain how paddle surfing empowers you, but it does. I guess that you will just have to try it to get what I mean. :]

Towards the end of our boarding session I was thinking pretty deeply. I had started out on a "medium skilled" beginner foam board that was 11'. It went pretty fast and pretty straight but half way through I switched to the "advanced skilled" beginner 10' C4 epoxy board which is made for the ocean- so to go fast and to move.

I loved the feel of the the epoxy board on the water but I was getting frustrated that it wouldn't go straight! I kept on trying to change paddling from one side to the other and was just getting annoyed that I was going slower then before (on a faster board) and not straight!

It took me until about the end of the session to remember that our teacher told us that we weren't going to be going straight on the 10' foot board but that if we paddled on both sides, deviating both ways that we'd get to our destination. That is a lot like life I think. We may get frustrated because we get pulled one way and then another and never seem to be heading straight to our destination, but if we concentrate on what we want to be the end result we make it! This takes a lot of focus and determination though (in life and surfing). Example: One girl in our group wasn't concentrating on her end goal but was looking around to see where she was on the "course" and she ended up falling in the smelly Great Salt Lake. In life we need to have "constant vigilance" as Mad-Eye Moody from Harry Potter would say and always focus on our main goal instead of worrying if we seemed "off course" at the moment.

So yeah, go surfing, change your life. I'm definitely planning on going again.

craft:: marble magnets

Merry Christmas! So I may have gotten my Christmas presents done before Halloween, but in my defense I actually started this project before I left for France. I put the magnets together in sets of seven and packaged them up all ready for gifts!

These are really fun and easy to make. I made some with my wonderful sister-in-law when she came out for a vacation. You just need some magnets, clear marbles (like the kind that go in fish bowls or vases), magazines, and glue!
Cut pictures that you like out of the magazines and place them with the side you want to see visible. Put a drop or two of glue on the flat side of the clear marble/bead and place it on the picture. Let this dry and then cut the excess picture off from the sides of the marble. Take your magnet and glue it to the back and voila!

craft:: autumn cards

So I thought of something really clever for Kirstin's birthday...cards! These are homemade and pretty earthy, so she should like them. I got the idea whilst we were on a hiking escapade with Erik and my dad.
It was really simple to make the cards. I just went to the local crafts store and found some paper that I liked, cut out cards, and then glued on the leaves! I first had to dry the leaves and I actually used a good old fashioned type writer on some of the cards before the leaves got glued on them, but otherwise it is easy-squeezy! You are normally supposed to put contact paper on dried leaves, but I prefer it without- I don't know how it will hold up in the mail though!

recipe:: pear almond cake

Kirstin was wanting to do something with the over-ripe pears we had in the house last week and so I was looking up an oat-y pear cobbler. Kirstin wanted a cake and I happened to stumble upon this AMAZING recipe from New York Times. Most NY Times recipes you can count on, and seeing that this one was from a 1983 THE SUCCESSFUL DINNER PARTY: A GAME PLAN, we knew it was golden, and it was. The lemon-almond flavor in this cake leaves your taste buds guessing what the wonderful thing is that you are eating. As Nate Schroader said, "I don't know what to think of it!"
I will definitely be making this cake again, I only got one slice because it didn't even last twenty-four hours. I even won't be changing the recipe.

Pear Almond Cake

Ingredients

2 pounds ripe pears, peeled, cored and sliced

1 lemon

10 tablespoons butter at room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 cup sliced almonds (we used slivered almonds)

1 cup heavy cream, whipped

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Butter and flour 9-inch springform cake pan.

3. Toss pears with juice of half a lemon and set aside.

4. Cream 8 tablespoons of butter with 3/4 cup of sugar. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together and add to batter, stirring lightly. Add remaining lemon juice and almond extract.

5. Spread batter in prepared pan and cover with sliced pears, arranging decoratively if you wish. Dot with 1 tablespoon of remaining butter. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar and scatter almonds on top. Sprinkle with remaining sugar and dot with remaining butter. Bake for 1 hour (we baked it for about 48 minutes until we saw that the sides were getting rather dark). Allow to cool slightly before removing sides of pan. Serve at room temperature with whipped cream.

YIELD 6 - 8 servings