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