MONDAY We thought the Dome (kind of like the city hall) would have a good cafe. We were wrong. It was retched. My favorite was when Sintija said in English, "This tastes like rubber." Oh goodness! We quickly left and went and sat in a love bird booth at Chili Pica and got dessert. I got some yummy melted chocolate and ice cream.
TUESDAY We met with my favorite Santa Dike. She had to pray twice because she forgot a word in her pray. It was pretty great. She is still my favorite. Her prayers have changed so much. God is definitely one of her best friends, it is awesome. We headed up on a bus to Riga so that I could go to the doctors. Dr. Caune was a super nice lady and she told me I had a terrible cough (thank you, like I didn't know that). She listened to my lungs and said that they sounded clean and then sent me off with some prescriptions for plant juice (that doesn't help you stop coughing), some cough drops, and an asthma inhaler. Fun stuff! She sent me off to get some blood tests to make sure that I didn't need an antibiotic. That was fun. Screaming children, needles, foreign language. Good stuff. I also got walked in on whilst going to the bathroom. It was a long day. We also got lost. (Not my fault! I was not leading). Luckily the assistants came and picked us up because I was TIRED from walking all over. They took us to the empty sisters' apartment. There wasn't even toilet paper in it! It was pretty funny. The night before Sister Wilson said, "What if there is no toilet paper." "That is ridiculous," I replied. "What kind of person would do that." I guess she should have listened to the spirit and brought toilet paper, lol.
WEDNESDAY was Zone Conference. Our district wore ugly Christmas sweaters! It was epic. Sorry we didn't get a picture...sigh. The elders had Charlie Brown-esque sweaters and Sister Wilson's was bright blue with snowmen. The senior couples made us a nice Christmas lunch, there was a slideshow, and we had a gift exchange (I got cookies), Elder Alder told me stories on the ride home to snowy Liepaja!
THURSDAY We had choir practice for the Christmas Eve Program. Aivars Fishmeisters (eternal investigator) came hobbling in [he has had hip surgery], "Elders! I just heard twenty minutes ago that you were in a fight. Are you alright? Are you hurt? You should get another day off." It was really cute that he was so worried about it. The elders are fine; the newspaper decided to write an article about it so they have been the talk of the town.
FRIDAY night we got to help out Santa Claus deliver gifts to the Frolavi home. Eriks was so excited and so confused about it. I like doorbell ditching people. Sister Wilson slipped on the ice as we were running away, oops!
SATURDAY we went out caroling in the rain. We were all pretty wet by the end, but we had a lot of fun. People thought we were crazy (we are). We then went to the Christmas Concert and sang songs like Go tell it on the Mountain and Silent Night in Latvian. It was a nice short program and at the end Ausma gave me chibas (aka knit slippers). They are so great! They look like fairy shoes and are pretty much my favorite. Since I was fairly awake on Saturday night we had Christmas early and opened all of our presents. Thank you everyone!
SUNDAY we had an hour meeting full of testimonies of Jesus Christ. We sang Silent Night as the closing hymn and the spirit was very strong. We went to some less active's homes and saw a bunch of wild swans on the lake. They were beautiful. I like watching the wind on the water.
Practically every day we have met with Valda, a 51-year-old working towards baptism. She loves Jesus and likes to wear clothes that sparkle. Her mom, Zigrida is 80, has no chompers and loves to have us sing since she can't see well. She claps her hands and giggles like a little girl whenever we finish a song. I'm pretty sure that Valda has a crush on Oskars. Valda has a boyfriend that we are trying to help her get rid of. He is a drunk that already has a wife. Lots of fun stuff.
Merry Christmas and I love you all. God loves us so He sent His Son! Christ, Jesus, the annointed one!
Love,
Sister L
Note from Thor & Lisa: We had a nice 'video chat' with Mari on Christmas morning. She looked great, and we all enjoyed visiting with her.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Week 44
Merry Christmas everyone!
I can't believe that a year has already flown by. With this past week being my year mark I have been thinking a lot about what I was doing last year. What an adventure the past year has been, filled with many ups and downs. Thank you all for your continued love, support, and prayers.
On Monday we went by the Ringman Maris' to pick up some rings. Sister Wilson made the mistake of asking about skiing. A half hour later we left. We are now well versed on skiing in Latvia and in other places in the world, lol. It was actually a lot of fun. Maris loves skiing and is such a fun man. We ate a late lunch with the elders at Olive and had a fun lesson with a lady named Sveta. Missionaries used to live by her and she was just all sorts of fun. "I haven't formed an opinion about your church yet." I had a fun little miracle of listening to the spirit on Monday. Normally I carry around a "personal" copy of the Book of Mormon. It is one of the smaller older versions that I use so that I don't soil a bunch of new ones. I had the impression Monday to take a new Book of Mormon, so I did. I was on tram, on the way home from harvesting debating whether I wanted to talk to this lady or not. I decided to and made a straight b-line for her. She was just the perfect little contact. "You are a missionary? That is so great! I love the Bible. Do you believe in the Bible? I bet you have a special book too? That book contains the fulness of Jesus Christ's gospel and you can study it with the Bible? I bet you teach English too, and I bet it is for free." Sadly she didn't want to meet, but she did take a copy of the Book of Mormon and our phone number.
On Tuesday we had District Meeting in Latvian with Oskars! It was fun having him there. He really enjoyed being with us and helping out. We taught Santa Dike about Family History with Ludmila. Ludmila was the cutest thing in the lesson. She really likes family history and was so excited that Santa would be able to work on her family history. In Ludmila's prayer she prayed that Santa would be able to get a temple recommend and do her family history and it was just super cute. We taught Guna out of Alma 32 and she thinks she has the desire to grow the seed!
Wednesday's highlight was going to Inga's. Inga is a long time investigator who apparently hasn't had a firm grip about what the Book of Mormon is. She didn't understand fully about what the BOM is, where it came from, who wrote it, etc. We cleared that all up and it made a LOT more sense to her. We also helped Inga clean. We were all ready with gloves to get down and dirty but we ended up just helping her fold clothes. She owns a LOT of clothes. A lot a lot.
Thursday was transfers! Elder Palmer is leaving us, but everyone else is staying the same in Liepaja. Elder Burr and Elder Lynch are serving together in Jelgava, in a tri-panionship with a Russian speaking elder from Sweden! I so wish I could be there, but alas, I still haven't found those people I am to teach in Liepaja. We had a branch activity and made Christmas cards.
Friday was a busy day. We taught Rita, a newly engaged 51-year old English and a spiritual thought. We also got to meet with Valda. She is a woman that the elders contacted that has a strong desire to change her life. It was really neat to meet with her and teach her how to pray. She came to church on Sunday and we extended a baptismal date to her then. She is already reading from the Book of Mormon and is just a really sincere and humble woman. We had a fun little bonding time with Alesja during her meeting. We started by talking about families and then she showed us all of her family pictures. We also got to meet with the Beldavi on Friday night. Dace (the mom) was there, so it was nice to talk to her. That woman is a saint, raising four sons on her own!
Saturday's service was helping Rihard's stack wood. It was pretty easy this time since we just had to stay in the house and stack it. We then had choir practice for our Christmas Eve concert, English class, and a lesson with a hopefully soon-to-be-new-member Nadezda. She is the cutest lady and she loves the Book of Mormon. She brought her copy to class and we read some of it together. By we I mean she, and she did it with arm movements and such emotion and would stop and say, "I love this part!" and other things that missionaries love to hear. Sadly, she is going out of town for the holidays. I am excited for January. Liga was mellow this week, she's been sick. She made us cabbage soup (tasted like coleslaw in soup form...yuck!) and I had a cough attack. It was pretty bad, my eyes started watering and yeah. I survived though.
On Sunday Valda came to church! Hurray! Madara is back from her mini-mission and she gave a talk and it was a good sacrament meeting about callings and service.
I can't believe that it is almost Christmas! I look forward to spending the next holiday season with you. Hot chocolate, "It's A Wonderful Life", and all my favorite people.
Sending you Christmas kisses!
Sister L
I can't believe that a year has already flown by. With this past week being my year mark I have been thinking a lot about what I was doing last year. What an adventure the past year has been, filled with many ups and downs. Thank you all for your continued love, support, and prayers.
On Monday we went by the Ringman Maris' to pick up some rings. Sister Wilson made the mistake of asking about skiing. A half hour later we left. We are now well versed on skiing in Latvia and in other places in the world, lol. It was actually a lot of fun. Maris loves skiing and is such a fun man. We ate a late lunch with the elders at Olive and had a fun lesson with a lady named Sveta. Missionaries used to live by her and she was just all sorts of fun. "I haven't formed an opinion about your church yet." I had a fun little miracle of listening to the spirit on Monday. Normally I carry around a "personal" copy of the Book of Mormon. It is one of the smaller older versions that I use so that I don't soil a bunch of new ones. I had the impression Monday to take a new Book of Mormon, so I did. I was on tram, on the way home from harvesting debating whether I wanted to talk to this lady or not. I decided to and made a straight b-line for her. She was just the perfect little contact. "You are a missionary? That is so great! I love the Bible. Do you believe in the Bible? I bet you have a special book too? That book contains the fulness of Jesus Christ's gospel and you can study it with the Bible? I bet you teach English too, and I bet it is for free." Sadly she didn't want to meet, but she did take a copy of the Book of Mormon and our phone number.
On Tuesday we had District Meeting in Latvian with Oskars! It was fun having him there. He really enjoyed being with us and helping out. We taught Santa Dike about Family History with Ludmila. Ludmila was the cutest thing in the lesson. She really likes family history and was so excited that Santa would be able to work on her family history. In Ludmila's prayer she prayed that Santa would be able to get a temple recommend and do her family history and it was just super cute. We taught Guna out of Alma 32 and she thinks she has the desire to grow the seed!
Wednesday's highlight was going to Inga's. Inga is a long time investigator who apparently hasn't had a firm grip about what the Book of Mormon is. She didn't understand fully about what the BOM is, where it came from, who wrote it, etc. We cleared that all up and it made a LOT more sense to her. We also helped Inga clean. We were all ready with gloves to get down and dirty but we ended up just helping her fold clothes. She owns a LOT of clothes. A lot a lot.
Thursday was transfers! Elder Palmer is leaving us, but everyone else is staying the same in Liepaja. Elder Burr and Elder Lynch are serving together in Jelgava, in a tri-panionship with a Russian speaking elder from Sweden! I so wish I could be there, but alas, I still haven't found those people I am to teach in Liepaja. We had a branch activity and made Christmas cards.
Friday was a busy day. We taught Rita, a newly engaged 51-year old English and a spiritual thought. We also got to meet with Valda. She is a woman that the elders contacted that has a strong desire to change her life. It was really neat to meet with her and teach her how to pray. She came to church on Sunday and we extended a baptismal date to her then. She is already reading from the Book of Mormon and is just a really sincere and humble woman. We had a fun little bonding time with Alesja during her meeting. We started by talking about families and then she showed us all of her family pictures. We also got to meet with the Beldavi on Friday night. Dace (the mom) was there, so it was nice to talk to her. That woman is a saint, raising four sons on her own!
Saturday's service was helping Rihard's stack wood. It was pretty easy this time since we just had to stay in the house and stack it. We then had choir practice for our Christmas Eve concert, English class, and a lesson with a hopefully soon-to-be-new-member Nadezda. She is the cutest lady and she loves the Book of Mormon. She brought her copy to class and we read some of it together. By we I mean she, and she did it with arm movements and such emotion and would stop and say, "I love this part!" and other things that missionaries love to hear. Sadly, she is going out of town for the holidays. I am excited for January. Liga was mellow this week, she's been sick. She made us cabbage soup (tasted like coleslaw in soup form...yuck!) and I had a cough attack. It was pretty bad, my eyes started watering and yeah. I survived though.
On Sunday Valda came to church! Hurray! Madara is back from her mini-mission and she gave a talk and it was a good sacrament meeting about callings and service.
I can't believe that it is almost Christmas! I look forward to spending the next holiday season with you. Hot chocolate, "It's A Wonderful Life", and all my favorite people.
Sending you Christmas kisses!
Sister L
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Week 43
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...at least decoration wise. :) There are angels "floating" in the river, the bridge is covered with gingerbread cookies, there is a tram that is covered in Christmas lights, the Catholic church has them as well, a giant Christmas tree is in center, and the University has giant white lights and snowflakes on campus. I am perfectly fine with the fact that there is no snow on the ground. No snow = above freezing and with wind chill it isn't too bad. I realized last night that this is the 4th Christmas away from home for me. I am ready to be back home, doing the nativity and driving dad nuts, eating cold cereal Christmas morning after waking up way too early, and of course, slurpees at 7-11 with my favorite people on Christmas Eve. There's always next year though!
Did I mention that I feel like I live in "It's a Wonderful Life"? Currently there is a bank crisis here in Latvija. One Latvian bank went bankrupt and all the time there are huge lines at banks- people trying to get out their money and such.
Last Monday was quite adventurous. We went with recent convert Liga to try out these massaging beds. It was actually really nice. That is the best my legs have felt in years! (Now don't I sound old.) The people there do a great job at brainwashing you into thinking that you need a 30 centime massage every day (aka 60 cents US for about a half hour massage and 30 minutes or so of brainwashing to like their products). The shorter days haven't been bothering me as much as I thought...we've been very busy this week though with various activities. Mostly we just live in a time warp of perpetual gray, the occasional rain, wind, and blue sky. I'm just glad that it isn't super cold. Our windows are quite drafty. Our house temperature ranges from 61 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. We bought some tape and are going to tape up the windows today and see if it makes it less draft. So anywho, we ate at my favorite Pastnieka Maja. I got fish and rice. It was weird, we ate upstairs, which isn't very cute. There are VERY large pink flowers on the walls and yes...I just like downstairs and outside better. Speaking of outside, there is a boardwalk that leads across some grass to Pastnieka Maja. Elder Alder was sliding on it because it was hail/rain/snowing and he biffed it and fell really hard. He was soaking wet and embarrassed and we all had belly aches from laughing. We made a bunch of playdough ornaments for ward members that we still need to paint.
Tuesday we had quite the weather- more of the rain/snow/hail with wind. I now know why I went to physical therapy for so long...so I could walk backwards and sideways really fast so you don't get pelted in the face by hail going at least 30 mph. I knew there had to be a reason they always made me practice traveling all sorts of directions of that treadmill! Mostly the weather just made me laugh, although I was very wet very quickly. We had lunch with Ruta Jekste, the former RS president who randomly went off to Germany. She is back and is doing well. She really didn't like her job there...they were very restrictive on her freedom. Needless to say she talked our ears off and is glad to be back in the Branch and helping out. She fed us rice with beef and carrots "chinese food!". We dropped off cookies to some members, overall it went well. We were able to see one member, Alesja, who hasn't been to church for 10 years and set up an appointment to talk with her.
On Wednesday we took cookies to inactive Lydia and Dzintra. They were NOT happy to see us. I left the cookies outside their doors anyway. :) Ausma was happy to see us and We had a good lesson with Alesja. She is 20 and got baptized when she was about ten. She is really nice and sweet-tempered and wants to come to church once she finishes learning how to drive. Driving here is a big deal- it is really expensive and the law is soon changing that you have to be 21 to drive here. You lose your license if you ever hit anyone and they have a disciple points and fine system like we do in Utah. We visited a possible investigator, Inga. She is the Branch President Wife's friend. She is a nice lady who needs to make some life changes but will one day be a member. We had a good evening harvesting. Lots of people gave us their phone numbers and said we could come back.
Thursday’s highlights included eating lunch at Zelma's house. She fed us frikadellas with potatoes and sour cream. We eat everything with sour cream here- soup, potatoes, pancakes, meat, salad, pretty much anything and everything. They are proud of their potatoes here. Lots of varieties and a lot more flavorful than Idaho potatoes. We held a Relief Society party in the evening...we made Christmas cards as well as flowers from cloth to wear. Overall it went really well and we are planning on having another activity to make even more cards.
Friday, oh Friday. It was snowing on Friday (it is all gone now). But you see, there is this cute old man who is out every morning and stands by the gate to the old Catholic church and begs for money. He was out today in the awful weather and the priest told him to leave and he was walking across the cobblestone with his cane looking defeated and it was just really sad. I cried for him. We are so blessed to have so much. So so much. There would be many many families living in houses the size we have in Utah. We made a yummy creamy vegetable soup (with far too much onion...oh boy!), and we did a lot of calling of persons on Friday. Presidents sang for us....it was some crazy Russian- 80s techno super weird song about forgiveness. I think he should keep to his opera. It was pretty great though...I just imagined him in a gangster outfit with some electric guitar players with long hair behind him. I gently nudged that he shouldn't sing it for the Christmas party. We had tea and cookies with Liga in the evening and talked to her about tithing. She is excited to pay it and it was just a good lesson overall.
On Saturday we only had 6 or so people at English...all of our Lauma (lingerie factory) students are working 6 days a week to finish a huge order. We had a good lesson with Santa from Enos 1. I really like Enos one, it was a really touching chapter for me. I especially liked the last two verses. We had a choir practice...mostly missionaries and a few members. So far I don't have any solos, so that is good. We are learning some traditional Latvian Christmas songs, as well as other songs like "Go Tell It On A Mountain" in Latvian. We love feeling like a Baptist church! We went harvesting and a young dad set up an appointment with us for next Wednesday...wahoo! Sister Wilson was in need of some chocolate Saturday night and after buying 5 lats worth she set off the alarm. A big security man then came and grabbed her. I had to quickly grab all her chocolate and other articles and go chasing after them. They disappeared! Luckily Sister Wilson is loud so I could hear her. She was in a boxed off security room and apparently her pocket dictionary set off the alarm. Always an adventure!
On Sunday I was able to give a talk about family. It went really well and several members thanked me after, so I guess it was good! I talked a lot about how my family is a great example to me, especially my parents. They have taught me about the importance of family history, how to work, how to serve, the importance of the temple, daily scripture study, home and visiting teaching, family prayer, and so on. I helped Sister Wilson in Primary. The kids were pretty rowdy so we did some pretty silly games while singing. In the end they just ended up making a fort out of blankets and chairs...wild children! We then did normal missionary work- trying to find people and there wasn't anything too exciting there.
Merry Christmas!
Love, Sister L
Did I mention that I feel like I live in "It's a Wonderful Life"? Currently there is a bank crisis here in Latvija. One Latvian bank went bankrupt and all the time there are huge lines at banks- people trying to get out their money and such.
Last Monday was quite adventurous. We went with recent convert Liga to try out these massaging beds. It was actually really nice. That is the best my legs have felt in years! (Now don't I sound old.) The people there do a great job at brainwashing you into thinking that you need a 30 centime massage every day (aka 60 cents US for about a half hour massage and 30 minutes or so of brainwashing to like their products). The shorter days haven't been bothering me as much as I thought...we've been very busy this week though with various activities. Mostly we just live in a time warp of perpetual gray, the occasional rain, wind, and blue sky. I'm just glad that it isn't super cold. Our windows are quite drafty. Our house temperature ranges from 61 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. We bought some tape and are going to tape up the windows today and see if it makes it less draft. So anywho, we ate at my favorite Pastnieka Maja. I got fish and rice. It was weird, we ate upstairs, which isn't very cute. There are VERY large pink flowers on the walls and yes...I just like downstairs and outside better. Speaking of outside, there is a boardwalk that leads across some grass to Pastnieka Maja. Elder Alder was sliding on it because it was hail/rain/snowing and he biffed it and fell really hard. He was soaking wet and embarrassed and we all had belly aches from laughing. We made a bunch of playdough ornaments for ward members that we still need to paint.
Tuesday we had quite the weather- more of the rain/snow/hail with wind. I now know why I went to physical therapy for so long...so I could walk backwards and sideways really fast so you don't get pelted in the face by hail going at least 30 mph. I knew there had to be a reason they always made me practice traveling all sorts of directions of that treadmill! Mostly the weather just made me laugh, although I was very wet very quickly. We had lunch with Ruta Jekste, the former RS president who randomly went off to Germany. She is back and is doing well. She really didn't like her job there...they were very restrictive on her freedom. Needless to say she talked our ears off and is glad to be back in the Branch and helping out. She fed us rice with beef and carrots "chinese food!". We dropped off cookies to some members, overall it went well. We were able to see one member, Alesja, who hasn't been to church for 10 years and set up an appointment to talk with her.
On Wednesday we took cookies to inactive Lydia and Dzintra. They were NOT happy to see us. I left the cookies outside their doors anyway. :) Ausma was happy to see us and We had a good lesson with Alesja. She is 20 and got baptized when she was about ten. She is really nice and sweet-tempered and wants to come to church once she finishes learning how to drive. Driving here is a big deal- it is really expensive and the law is soon changing that you have to be 21 to drive here. You lose your license if you ever hit anyone and they have a disciple points and fine system like we do in Utah. We visited a possible investigator, Inga. She is the Branch President Wife's friend. She is a nice lady who needs to make some life changes but will one day be a member. We had a good evening harvesting. Lots of people gave us their phone numbers and said we could come back.
Thursday’s highlights included eating lunch at Zelma's house. She fed us frikadellas with potatoes and sour cream. We eat everything with sour cream here- soup, potatoes, pancakes, meat, salad, pretty much anything and everything. They are proud of their potatoes here. Lots of varieties and a lot more flavorful than Idaho potatoes. We held a Relief Society party in the evening...we made Christmas cards as well as flowers from cloth to wear. Overall it went really well and we are planning on having another activity to make even more cards.
Friday, oh Friday. It was snowing on Friday (it is all gone now). But you see, there is this cute old man who is out every morning and stands by the gate to the old Catholic church and begs for money. He was out today in the awful weather and the priest told him to leave and he was walking across the cobblestone with his cane looking defeated and it was just really sad. I cried for him. We are so blessed to have so much. So so much. There would be many many families living in houses the size we have in Utah. We made a yummy creamy vegetable soup (with far too much onion...oh boy!), and we did a lot of calling of persons on Friday. Presidents sang for us....it was some crazy Russian- 80s techno super weird song about forgiveness. I think he should keep to his opera. It was pretty great though...I just imagined him in a gangster outfit with some electric guitar players with long hair behind him. I gently nudged that he shouldn't sing it for the Christmas party. We had tea and cookies with Liga in the evening and talked to her about tithing. She is excited to pay it and it was just a good lesson overall.
On Saturday we only had 6 or so people at English...all of our Lauma (lingerie factory) students are working 6 days a week to finish a huge order. We had a good lesson with Santa from Enos 1. I really like Enos one, it was a really touching chapter for me. I especially liked the last two verses. We had a choir practice...mostly missionaries and a few members. So far I don't have any solos, so that is good. We are learning some traditional Latvian Christmas songs, as well as other songs like "Go Tell It On A Mountain" in Latvian. We love feeling like a Baptist church! We went harvesting and a young dad set up an appointment with us for next Wednesday...wahoo! Sister Wilson was in need of some chocolate Saturday night and after buying 5 lats worth she set off the alarm. A big security man then came and grabbed her. I had to quickly grab all her chocolate and other articles and go chasing after them. They disappeared! Luckily Sister Wilson is loud so I could hear her. She was in a boxed off security room and apparently her pocket dictionary set off the alarm. Always an adventure!
On Sunday I was able to give a talk about family. It went really well and several members thanked me after, so I guess it was good! I talked a lot about how my family is a great example to me, especially my parents. They have taught me about the importance of family history, how to work, how to serve, the importance of the temple, daily scripture study, home and visiting teaching, family prayer, and so on. I helped Sister Wilson in Primary. The kids were pretty rowdy so we did some pretty silly games while singing. In the end they just ended up making a fort out of blankets and chairs...wild children! We then did normal missionary work- trying to find people and there wasn't anything too exciting there.
Merry Christmas!
Love, Sister L
Monday, December 5, 2011
Week 42
Monday
Thanksgiving take two was definitely a lot less stressful and almost as good. We didn't finish Thanksgiving leftovers until Thursday. Our district had a nice time talking and writing letters. In the evening we went and had FHE with the Frolavi family since they are having some family trials. They are doing well. Afterwards we dropped Jana Gromenko (inactive) and gave her cookies. She let us in for a spiritual thought and for a return appointment!
Tuesday
In District Meeting I was glad for the opportunity to practice teaching about dispensations. As of late I've been going over the first three lessons in PMG and learning a lot and improving my teaching. We went with Lidija L. to do her visiting teaching. We went to visit an awesome inactive member, Mara. She and Lidija butted heads at first, but by the end everyone was sipping tea and enjoying Mara showing us all of the crafts that she has made. Luckily the whispers of inspiration told me to 1. bring Mara's address and 2. prepare a spiritual thought. We taught Santa Dike (recent convert) in the evening about Gifts of the Spirit and you know what, she didn't crack one single joke about it. I was kind of disappointed. Regardless, it was a great lesson.
Wednesday
Everyone decided to cancel on us. It ended up working out though because Lidija called during studies and asked if we could take her daughter to the dentist since she had to work. The dentist was behind schedule and so it all worked out. It was interesting to be inside a school here. It was PURE CHAOS. I have never seen so many little people punching each other and being so loud. It would be pure madness to be a teacher here. I am grateful that we have a more civilized educational approach. We went by Liga's (recent convert...the one who practically took the Book of Mormon out of my hands) even though she had cancelled on us earlier and she let us in! We had cookies and she was so glad to see us that she made us peppermint tea and bread and butter. I have a confession, I kind of like tea now. Sugar is the key. Anywho, Liga invited us to go get 30 centime (60 US cents) massages with her on Monday [in retrospect it was a very nice massage by a machine].
Thursday
We went and had probably our best lesson with inactive Vineta. Her husband was home and he took little Marex (who still doesn't talk) for a little bit and you could actually feel the Spirit really strongly, it was great! We had a lesson with Oskars in his home. Wow. We are just spoiled little people. Oskars lives in a one room home with a wood stove, 2 old broken beds, 2 chairs that he places his clothes on, no fridge, no cupboards, just a small table by a sink and enough dishes to serve himself. We are so blessed to have so much and yet we always want more. There are others who have nothing and are happy. I think we have a big lesson to learn from them. The gospel has made Oskars happy. He was just beaming when he showed us pictures of his family (all now deceased). We went to the town tree lighting ceremony. It was really fun. Different classes from the schools dressed up and sort of had a parade. They sang some traditional folk songs about how it is getting dark and how they have the stars for light but want the sun and so on. It was all really pretty and there were so many cute families. Since the whole cookie thing has been going so well, we decided to try it with an investigator we haven't been able to meet with, Zenta [older, has the grandson with the crazy random disease]. She, along with all our other investigators will be busy pretty much all December.
Friday
Yay for early morning trips to Riga. The handsome ortho was able to fix my new retainers right away. We went around Imanta a little bit- it was weird to be in my old stomping grounds. We then picked up mail and I ended up carrying a very heavy package around all day in the rain and wind. We found a great cafe, Sweetday Cafe, and had some creamy vegetable soup with some good but overpriced chocolate cake with ice cream and fruit. It was pretty epically eclectic. It reminded me of a cafe that Kimmie, Kirstin, and I would have. They were also playing awesome old school (aka Nat King Cole) Christmas music which is my favorite. I love the old stuff!
Satuday
The church got attacked again. More graffiti and three broken windows. Last week they tried to steal the sign. We don't know who it is, but we have a sneaking suspicion that it could be some previous investigators. We had a neat little moment in English class...we were going over how the BOM answers questions to the soul and spent some time showing everyone how to look up the scriptures and they all seemed a lot more comfortable and everyone took a BOM at the end! That NEVER happens! It was super awesome. We went off with Lidija again to help with her visiting teaching. On the way I dropped the phone in a puddle. Never fear, the phone is fine! It wasn't like when Sister Sutterfield ran it through the laundry by any means. The inactive woman we visited, Inese was really great and her whole family (husband and 2 kids) are members. We had a good lesson with her, Lidija talked a LOT this time and Inese actually came to church on Sunday, what a miracle! Do your visiting and home teaching everybody! We had our lesson with Jana. Rubija a member who has been in France picking kiwis (no, she doesn't speak French) helped us with the lesson and I think Sister Gromenko really liked it.
Sunday
The Boswells came to church today which was fun! I translated Sister Boswell's testimony...it is hard waiting for people to finish their thoughts and then translate. I do much better translating as they talk. I was in Primary for singing time with Sister Wilson and then Sister Boswell went to Relief Society with me so I could do my duties there. We then had lentil soup and biscuits to break our fast. We love having the Boswell's over!
Thanksgiving take two was definitely a lot less stressful and almost as good. We didn't finish Thanksgiving leftovers until Thursday. Our district had a nice time talking and writing letters. In the evening we went and had FHE with the Frolavi family since they are having some family trials. They are doing well. Afterwards we dropped Jana Gromenko (inactive) and gave her cookies. She let us in for a spiritual thought and for a return appointment!
Tuesday
In District Meeting I was glad for the opportunity to practice teaching about dispensations. As of late I've been going over the first three lessons in PMG and learning a lot and improving my teaching. We went with Lidija L. to do her visiting teaching. We went to visit an awesome inactive member, Mara. She and Lidija butted heads at first, but by the end everyone was sipping tea and enjoying Mara showing us all of the crafts that she has made. Luckily the whispers of inspiration told me to 1. bring Mara's address and 2. prepare a spiritual thought. We taught Santa Dike (recent convert) in the evening about Gifts of the Spirit and you know what, she didn't crack one single joke about it. I was kind of disappointed. Regardless, it was a great lesson.
Wednesday
Everyone decided to cancel on us. It ended up working out though because Lidija called during studies and asked if we could take her daughter to the dentist since she had to work. The dentist was behind schedule and so it all worked out. It was interesting to be inside a school here. It was PURE CHAOS. I have never seen so many little people punching each other and being so loud. It would be pure madness to be a teacher here. I am grateful that we have a more civilized educational approach. We went by Liga's (recent convert...the one who practically took the Book of Mormon out of my hands) even though she had cancelled on us earlier and she let us in! We had cookies and she was so glad to see us that she made us peppermint tea and bread and butter. I have a confession, I kind of like tea now. Sugar is the key. Anywho, Liga invited us to go get 30 centime (60 US cents) massages with her on Monday [in retrospect it was a very nice massage by a machine].
Thursday
We went and had probably our best lesson with inactive Vineta. Her husband was home and he took little Marex (who still doesn't talk) for a little bit and you could actually feel the Spirit really strongly, it was great! We had a lesson with Oskars in his home. Wow. We are just spoiled little people. Oskars lives in a one room home with a wood stove, 2 old broken beds, 2 chairs that he places his clothes on, no fridge, no cupboards, just a small table by a sink and enough dishes to serve himself. We are so blessed to have so much and yet we always want more. There are others who have nothing and are happy. I think we have a big lesson to learn from them. The gospel has made Oskars happy. He was just beaming when he showed us pictures of his family (all now deceased). We went to the town tree lighting ceremony. It was really fun. Different classes from the schools dressed up and sort of had a parade. They sang some traditional folk songs about how it is getting dark and how they have the stars for light but want the sun and so on. It was all really pretty and there were so many cute families. Since the whole cookie thing has been going so well, we decided to try it with an investigator we haven't been able to meet with, Zenta [older, has the grandson with the crazy random disease]. She, along with all our other investigators will be busy pretty much all December.
Friday
Yay for early morning trips to Riga. The handsome ortho was able to fix my new retainers right away. We went around Imanta a little bit- it was weird to be in my old stomping grounds. We then picked up mail and I ended up carrying a very heavy package around all day in the rain and wind. We found a great cafe, Sweetday Cafe, and had some creamy vegetable soup with some good but overpriced chocolate cake with ice cream and fruit. It was pretty epically eclectic. It reminded me of a cafe that Kimmie, Kirstin, and I would have. They were also playing awesome old school (aka Nat King Cole) Christmas music which is my favorite. I love the old stuff!
Satuday
The church got attacked again. More graffiti and three broken windows. Last week they tried to steal the sign. We don't know who it is, but we have a sneaking suspicion that it could be some previous investigators. We had a neat little moment in English class...we were going over how the BOM answers questions to the soul and spent some time showing everyone how to look up the scriptures and they all seemed a lot more comfortable and everyone took a BOM at the end! That NEVER happens! It was super awesome. We went off with Lidija again to help with her visiting teaching. On the way I dropped the phone in a puddle. Never fear, the phone is fine! It wasn't like when Sister Sutterfield ran it through the laundry by any means. The inactive woman we visited, Inese was really great and her whole family (husband and 2 kids) are members. We had a good lesson with her, Lidija talked a LOT this time and Inese actually came to church on Sunday, what a miracle! Do your visiting and home teaching everybody! We had our lesson with Jana. Rubija a member who has been in France picking kiwis (no, she doesn't speak French) helped us with the lesson and I think Sister Gromenko really liked it.
Sunday
The Boswells came to church today which was fun! I translated Sister Boswell's testimony...it is hard waiting for people to finish their thoughts and then translate. I do much better translating as they talk. I was in Primary for singing time with Sister Wilson and then Sister Boswell went to Relief Society with me so I could do my duties there. We then had lentil soup and biscuits to break our fast. We love having the Boswell's over!
Monday, November 28, 2011
Week 41
Choosing clothes is tiring. I found Sister Wilson Monday morning half dressed, with her towel on her head asleep on her bed. It was pretty funny that she fell asleep dressing. We were able to visit and have two family home evenings- one with the Tolmachovi and the other with the Frolavi family. We did both on the Title of Liberty and had the families make their own. The Tolmachovi were so cute; it was a whole family affair. Selina (6) helped to trace mom and dad's hands. Dad then grabbed the cat and his paw was traced. Mom and Dad then pinned down baby Eliza's hand so that Selina could trace it as well. It was pretty great. We were also able to rack Sister Marika's brain with language questions and share a spiritual thought on priorities. It is true that if we put God first, the rest will fall into place.
We had an interesting District Meeting topic on Tuesday: declaring with the sound of a trump. I did a practice with Elder Palmer. It is probably good I don't speak Russian. I was trying to guess what he was saying, which just led to both of us laughing a lot. You have to love miscommunication. We went to visit cute ole Ausma. Poor lady is sick but her testimony is as strong as ever. Sister Wilson introduced me to a family favorite- "Dad's Sandwiches" aka grilled cheese with ham and pickle. It is quite good. I convinced her to let us have it two days in a row. Normally we don't have sandwiches (normally we also don't have dinner, just lunch) because it costs so much to get all of the individual ingredients to make a good sandwich.
It was neat to see inactive Vineta pray at the end of our lesson about faith. It was a drastic improvement from her last prayer. I hope that she continues to pray so that God may bless her. I made my first homemade pumpkin pie on Wednesday! It isn't that hard. We also made an apple pie. They both tasted swell, but they don't hold a candle to mom's pies. Sintija helped us to teach Santa about prophets. It was so fun to see Sintija asking Santa questions to make sure that her new friend was understanding the gospel. She was a great member missionary! We are planning on softening Santa's parents hearts with cookies this week.
We were able to C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E Thanksgiving Wilson style (aka with twice as much food than I would have bought). The elders were very grateful that they were in a district with sisters. All in all we had two stuffed chickens, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, jello, pumpkin and apple pie, whipped cream, carrots, corn, and green beans, and rolls. I was in charge of the rolls like mom always is. They definitely weren't as nice looking as mom's but they tasted just as good. I also made some orange and cinnamon rolls. The elders were amazing and were in love with the rolls. They thought that would be an acceptable Thanksgiving feast. We had two hours of our preparation day time from Monday to use on Thursday for Thanksgiving so we ate all night long. Everyone in center was able to have a huge celebration and be with the Boswells and Elder and Sister Lawrence from the Europe East Area presidency. I was so pooped by the end of the night though; I didn't even care that the phone was lost and we were leaving to Riga the next morning.
Thankfully the elders had accidentally taken our phone so it was back in our possession 6:30 am. On the way up to Riga we got to hear book 2 (out of 7) from Elder Palmer's series that he is writing called Abraxis. I can't wait to read these books. Sister Wilson had her big ole blue eyes popping out of the sockets hearing the story. I like my Latvian orthodontist. He is young, nice, funny, and attractive..all the qualities my orthodontist at home is lacking. He actually left Sister Wilson speechless, which is a feat in itself. Anywho, he stuck clay in my mouth to get a mold of my teeth for new retainers. They cost 51 lats, which I don't think is too bad all things considered. I am having some elders take them back though because when I put them on Friday night they were cutting into my gums...oww. Anywho, after the attractive ortho we had pizza with the sisters and then I went with Sister Ferrin to teach some lessons. It was nice to be with her again, we are generally on the same page with most things. I am going to miss her. We got to teach a less active with the Russian sisters who are my favorite people. Sometimes I think I got called to the wrong language because I love all the Russian sisters so much and would kill to serve with them. Sister Ferrin and I have fun though. Other than the fact that every door that was mine to contact was Russian, we had a blast. We got to one floor in a building that smelled particularly cologne-ish. We knocked on the doors and out of one pops this 20-something year old charmer. He was just in awe that we were American and bummed that we couldn't go party with him. I told him we could talk about Jesus, but he said he was relaxing for the evening. He wants to go out for coffee this Monday, so hopefully the sisters in Riga have a fun time with good old Gatis. He even kissed our hands goodbye. I thought it was pretty hilarious. Sister Ferrin just started running down the stairs going, "This is why I don't want to go home and date! Ahh!" I cut Sister Sutterfield's hair Friday night and then we all didn't get any sleep (and not because we were talking) before...
ZONE CONFERENCE on Saturday! It was intense. Sister Lawrence used to be the seminary of all seminary teachers. Our brains all hurt after she told us about the House of Israel and its implications in missionary work and as people in general. She is a scriptorian to say the least. We learned some neat stuff. The take home point is that if you are from the House of Israel (which pretty much every person who joins the church is) you most likely promised in heaven to help gather scattered Israel. Gentiles also don't get adopted into tribes. Elder Lawrence told us 5 Keys to Success in missionary work and then I had lunch with him and his wife. Sister Boswell talked about what made the Sons of Mosiah successful (prayer, fasting, scripture study), and President Boswell touched us all as he talked about Christ and the fourth watch. God is never late. We are first watch prayers to a forth watch God, that is all. Elder Lawrence then gave us all a huge slap in the face. Our baptismal numbers are the worst for the Europe East Area so we got a good talking to about what we need to be doing to improve our baptismal rate. I'm just glad it wasn't Elder Holland because then we would have all most definitely been crying. The happy take away message is that I have lots of things to work on in my missionary work. Testimony meeting was really great...it is so weird that we are losing over half the masas in 3 weeks! We were able to take the bus home with the Liepaja RS. They were up in Imanta (my old stomping grounds) for a RS Conference. It was a great opportunity to mingle with the members and talk to them. I didn't head to the back of the bus with the other missionaries. I sat up by Skaidra and some other ladies and we talked about life and I asked them about Christmas traditions in Latvia and such. The biggest thing is advent- 4 Sundays before Christmas they have a wreath with 4 candles and you light a candle every Sunday.
Sunday was fun. I helped Sister Wilson in Primary because the kids were making cookies for the linger longer, which was a success, along with the delicious taco soup we made. Nothing too crazy happened other than the weather on Sunday. It was VERY windy and rainy. I thought I was going to be blown away walking to the Beldavi's home. We had a fun time making Nephi's bow with them (which broke when they tried to shoot arrows), but I think they got the take home message. Don't complain about your circumstances, go do something and ask God to help you!
I know that God will help us and that He is never late. He is always there guiding us gently. I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for you.
Love,
Sis L
(Make sure to take a look at the pictures below: including corn dogs made on 11/11/11; and Mari with Santa Dike and Oskars)
We had an interesting District Meeting topic on Tuesday: declaring with the sound of a trump. I did a practice with Elder Palmer. It is probably good I don't speak Russian. I was trying to guess what he was saying, which just led to both of us laughing a lot. You have to love miscommunication. We went to visit cute ole Ausma. Poor lady is sick but her testimony is as strong as ever. Sister Wilson introduced me to a family favorite- "Dad's Sandwiches" aka grilled cheese with ham and pickle. It is quite good. I convinced her to let us have it two days in a row. Normally we don't have sandwiches (normally we also don't have dinner, just lunch) because it costs so much to get all of the individual ingredients to make a good sandwich.
It was neat to see inactive Vineta pray at the end of our lesson about faith. It was a drastic improvement from her last prayer. I hope that she continues to pray so that God may bless her. I made my first homemade pumpkin pie on Wednesday! It isn't that hard. We also made an apple pie. They both tasted swell, but they don't hold a candle to mom's pies. Sintija helped us to teach Santa about prophets. It was so fun to see Sintija asking Santa questions to make sure that her new friend was understanding the gospel. She was a great member missionary! We are planning on softening Santa's parents hearts with cookies this week.
We were able to C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E Thanksgiving Wilson style (aka with twice as much food than I would have bought). The elders were very grateful that they were in a district with sisters. All in all we had two stuffed chickens, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, jello, pumpkin and apple pie, whipped cream, carrots, corn, and green beans, and rolls. I was in charge of the rolls like mom always is. They definitely weren't as nice looking as mom's but they tasted just as good. I also made some orange and cinnamon rolls. The elders were amazing and were in love with the rolls. They thought that would be an acceptable Thanksgiving feast. We had two hours of our preparation day time from Monday to use on Thursday for Thanksgiving so we ate all night long. Everyone in center was able to have a huge celebration and be with the Boswells and Elder and Sister Lawrence from the Europe East Area presidency. I was so pooped by the end of the night though; I didn't even care that the phone was lost and we were leaving to Riga the next morning.
Thankfully the elders had accidentally taken our phone so it was back in our possession 6:30 am. On the way up to Riga we got to hear book 2 (out of 7) from Elder Palmer's series that he is writing called Abraxis. I can't wait to read these books. Sister Wilson had her big ole blue eyes popping out of the sockets hearing the story. I like my Latvian orthodontist. He is young, nice, funny, and attractive..all the qualities my orthodontist at home is lacking. He actually left Sister Wilson speechless, which is a feat in itself. Anywho, he stuck clay in my mouth to get a mold of my teeth for new retainers. They cost 51 lats, which I don't think is too bad all things considered. I am having some elders take them back though because when I put them on Friday night they were cutting into my gums...oww. Anywho, after the attractive ortho we had pizza with the sisters and then I went with Sister Ferrin to teach some lessons. It was nice to be with her again, we are generally on the same page with most things. I am going to miss her. We got to teach a less active with the Russian sisters who are my favorite people. Sometimes I think I got called to the wrong language because I love all the Russian sisters so much and would kill to serve with them. Sister Ferrin and I have fun though. Other than the fact that every door that was mine to contact was Russian, we had a blast. We got to one floor in a building that smelled particularly cologne-ish. We knocked on the doors and out of one pops this 20-something year old charmer. He was just in awe that we were American and bummed that we couldn't go party with him. I told him we could talk about Jesus, but he said he was relaxing for the evening. He wants to go out for coffee this Monday, so hopefully the sisters in Riga have a fun time with good old Gatis. He even kissed our hands goodbye. I thought it was pretty hilarious. Sister Ferrin just started running down the stairs going, "This is why I don't want to go home and date! Ahh!" I cut Sister Sutterfield's hair Friday night and then we all didn't get any sleep (and not because we were talking) before...
ZONE CONFERENCE on Saturday! It was intense. Sister Lawrence used to be the seminary of all seminary teachers. Our brains all hurt after she told us about the House of Israel and its implications in missionary work and as people in general. She is a scriptorian to say the least. We learned some neat stuff. The take home point is that if you are from the House of Israel (which pretty much every person who joins the church is) you most likely promised in heaven to help gather scattered Israel. Gentiles also don't get adopted into tribes. Elder Lawrence told us 5 Keys to Success in missionary work and then I had lunch with him and his wife. Sister Boswell talked about what made the Sons of Mosiah successful (prayer, fasting, scripture study), and President Boswell touched us all as he talked about Christ and the fourth watch. God is never late. We are first watch prayers to a forth watch God, that is all. Elder Lawrence then gave us all a huge slap in the face. Our baptismal numbers are the worst for the Europe East Area so we got a good talking to about what we need to be doing to improve our baptismal rate. I'm just glad it wasn't Elder Holland because then we would have all most definitely been crying. The happy take away message is that I have lots of things to work on in my missionary work. Testimony meeting was really great...it is so weird that we are losing over half the masas in 3 weeks! We were able to take the bus home with the Liepaja RS. They were up in Imanta (my old stomping grounds) for a RS Conference. It was a great opportunity to mingle with the members and talk to them. I didn't head to the back of the bus with the other missionaries. I sat up by Skaidra and some other ladies and we talked about life and I asked them about Christmas traditions in Latvia and such. The biggest thing is advent- 4 Sundays before Christmas they have a wreath with 4 candles and you light a candle every Sunday.
Sunday was fun. I helped Sister Wilson in Primary because the kids were making cookies for the linger longer, which was a success, along with the delicious taco soup we made. Nothing too crazy happened other than the weather on Sunday. It was VERY windy and rainy. I thought I was going to be blown away walking to the Beldavi's home. We had a fun time making Nephi's bow with them (which broke when they tried to shoot arrows), but I think they got the take home message. Don't complain about your circumstances, go do something and ask God to help you!
I know that God will help us and that He is never late. He is always there guiding us gently. I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for you.
Love,
Sis L
(Make sure to take a look at the pictures below: including corn dogs made on 11/11/11; and Mari with Santa Dike and Oskars)
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Week 40
21 Nov. 2011
So, in random news, Masa Madara Zommerovska (member from Liepaja) just got her mission call to the Temple Square Mission. She reports to the MTC the end of March 2012. You will all have to go visit!
Happy Thanksgiving! Mosiah 2:19-22
Monday was Sister Wilson's birthday and we had a fun time celebrating with Sintija and the Elders at the Rock Cafe. I played billiards against Elder Davidson and I lost, but not too badly! Sister Wilson got a gorgeous ring with lots of flowers and vines on it from Maris the ringman. We had a miracle Monday Night! We were able to meet with Vera and her daughter, Diana. When we got there Vera was having Diana's friend read the Liahona magazine about The Book of Mormon. Vera then asked us to explain what we did as missionaries to this friend. When we got to The Book of Mormon Vera took over and started to show her the pictures. [Pointing to Joseph Smith] "See, this is a prophet.." It doesn't get much better than that! Sadly, Vera believes it all but doesn't see the need to get baptized again since she feels that faith is enough. She's going to be a member eventually; she is trying so hard to find truth.
On Tuesday I got to roleplay with our Russian-speaking Elder Palmer. He is picking up Latvian quickly, he did the whole roleplay in Latvian. We borrowed a guitar to practice for the talent show and while tuning it we broke a string...gulp! We bought new ones after we had Thor's bread and NY ziti for a late birthday lunch. Sister Wilson loves dad's artesian bread. We met with Guna in the evening and taught her about church attendance and invited her to come. She seems a lot more open to the idea now!
We got to have a special District Meeting on planning with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday. I liked the change of mindset they are trying to instill. Instead of knocking you are finding X amount of lessons doing activity Y. Cute Santa Dike gave Sister Wilson chocolate and a flower for her birthday. Oh how I love Santa, never a dull moment. And cute Oskars (apparently everything is cute this week), he is opening up so much. I am sad that we won't have to teach him retention anymore after this month.
We taught investigator Santa about the word of wisdom on Thursday. The talent show was on Thursday and Sister Wilson got asked to sing "I love you like a love song" by Selina Gomez with Santa. We took the other option which was "Mistletoe" by Justin Beiber. In the end, both Santa and Sister Wilson sang solos. I played "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay on the guitar...not my best performance, but I didn't practice since we broke the guitar! My favorite talent was the primary doing the "I Don't wanna be a chicken I don't wanna be a duck" song in Russian. As missionaries we had a tie tying race (sisters won), sang "I Need Thee Every Hour" which went well, and "Hallelujah" which did not go well. It is the Hallelujah from Shrek. The Branch President asked us to sing it because he thought it was a church song. It was sooo awful. We had no accompaniment and were laughing at the lyrics.
Happy Independence day Latvia! We are the same age...weird. We had a weird lesson with the recently found member, Dzintra. I'm still confused. For Elder Palmer's half birthday we gave him half a card, half a candy bar, and half a cup cake with half a candle. We thought we were pretty funny. Ieva turned six and we went to her birthday party. Playing charades was hilarious...carrots, lamps, snails, oh boy! On the way back we saw some of the fireworks...I'm glad our Independence Day is in July...so much more romantic and fun to celebrate. After Skaidra (member) showed us her fun remodeled tropic paradise bedroom we had a great lesson with her on priorities. She is quitting her job at the end of the year!
On Saturday we found out that Maragrita is in Ireland and she didn't say goodbye. God bless her and keep her safe, that girl will need it. I guess she is planning on staying for a year. We had an awesome lesson with some of the Beldavi boys. Elvis really likes the scriptures and we had fun coloring with Raivo and Lauris.
We picked them up for church on Sunday and had a good sacrament meeting. Liga came to church again, hurray! I helped in Primary for a little bit. Sister Wilson and I have very different crowd control styles, so it was interesting. I'm marrying someone with the same parenting style views! Anywho, I was able to talk to a great lady on the tram Sunday night...she was going home from visiting her son's grave so I got to testify about the Plan of Salvation and she had lots of questions about our church. Maybe she will come one day. :)
The church is true, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. There is so much to be grateful for!
Masa Lindstroma
So, in random news, Masa Madara Zommerovska (member from Liepaja) just got her mission call to the Temple Square Mission. She reports to the MTC the end of March 2012. You will all have to go visit!
Happy Thanksgiving! Mosiah 2:19-22
Monday was Sister Wilson's birthday and we had a fun time celebrating with Sintija and the Elders at the Rock Cafe. I played billiards against Elder Davidson and I lost, but not too badly! Sister Wilson got a gorgeous ring with lots of flowers and vines on it from Maris the ringman. We had a miracle Monday Night! We were able to meet with Vera and her daughter, Diana. When we got there Vera was having Diana's friend read the Liahona magazine about The Book of Mormon. Vera then asked us to explain what we did as missionaries to this friend. When we got to The Book of Mormon Vera took over and started to show her the pictures. [Pointing to Joseph Smith] "See, this is a prophet.." It doesn't get much better than that! Sadly, Vera believes it all but doesn't see the need to get baptized again since she feels that faith is enough. She's going to be a member eventually; she is trying so hard to find truth.
On Tuesday I got to roleplay with our Russian-speaking Elder Palmer. He is picking up Latvian quickly, he did the whole roleplay in Latvian. We borrowed a guitar to practice for the talent show and while tuning it we broke a string...gulp! We bought new ones after we had Thor's bread and NY ziti for a late birthday lunch. Sister Wilson loves dad's artesian bread. We met with Guna in the evening and taught her about church attendance and invited her to come. She seems a lot more open to the idea now!
We got to have a special District Meeting on planning with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday. I liked the change of mindset they are trying to instill. Instead of knocking you are finding X amount of lessons doing activity Y. Cute Santa Dike gave Sister Wilson chocolate and a flower for her birthday. Oh how I love Santa, never a dull moment. And cute Oskars (apparently everything is cute this week), he is opening up so much. I am sad that we won't have to teach him retention anymore after this month.
We taught investigator Santa about the word of wisdom on Thursday. The talent show was on Thursday and Sister Wilson got asked to sing "I love you like a love song" by Selina Gomez with Santa. We took the other option which was "Mistletoe" by Justin Beiber. In the end, both Santa and Sister Wilson sang solos. I played "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay on the guitar...not my best performance, but I didn't practice since we broke the guitar! My favorite talent was the primary doing the "I Don't wanna be a chicken I don't wanna be a duck" song in Russian. As missionaries we had a tie tying race (sisters won), sang "I Need Thee Every Hour" which went well, and "Hallelujah" which did not go well. It is the Hallelujah from Shrek. The Branch President asked us to sing it because he thought it was a church song. It was sooo awful. We had no accompaniment and were laughing at the lyrics.
Happy Independence day Latvia! We are the same age...weird. We had a weird lesson with the recently found member, Dzintra. I'm still confused. For Elder Palmer's half birthday we gave him half a card, half a candy bar, and half a cup cake with half a candle. We thought we were pretty funny. Ieva turned six and we went to her birthday party. Playing charades was hilarious...carrots, lamps, snails, oh boy! On the way back we saw some of the fireworks...I'm glad our Independence Day is in July...so much more romantic and fun to celebrate. After Skaidra (member) showed us her fun remodeled tropic paradise bedroom we had a great lesson with her on priorities. She is quitting her job at the end of the year!
On Saturday we found out that Maragrita is in Ireland and she didn't say goodbye. God bless her and keep her safe, that girl will need it. I guess she is planning on staying for a year. We had an awesome lesson with some of the Beldavi boys. Elvis really likes the scriptures and we had fun coloring with Raivo and Lauris.
We picked them up for church on Sunday and had a good sacrament meeting. Liga came to church again, hurray! I helped in Primary for a little bit. Sister Wilson and I have very different crowd control styles, so it was interesting. I'm marrying someone with the same parenting style views! Anywho, I was able to talk to a great lady on the tram Sunday night...she was going home from visiting her son's grave so I got to testify about the Plan of Salvation and she had lots of questions about our church. Maybe she will come one day. :)
The church is true, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. There is so much to be grateful for!
Masa Lindstroma
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Week 39
Nov. 14, 2011
We had a fun preparation day last Monday. I bought a new pillow and I am sleeping so much better. Now we just need to kill the mice in the walls! We were going to go biking but it was cold. And Elder Palmer has a phobia of bikes. Instead we had lunch together and then played Texas Hold'em. I almost won! If the elders would have done a better job explaining what cards win, I would have had all the mini-Monopoly money. We had Latvian class with Marika in the evening. She told stories, which was fun.
On Tuesday we ate some of "Thor's Thundercrisp" (throw "Thor" in front of anything and it is a hit) during sister exchanges. This is a new thing. After our district meeting on our purpose as missionaries we got to pick the elders' brains for ideas and get to "vent" (while your companion is still there...don't know how that works) since we never get to have exchanges. We found out that we aren't having fun! Neither of us could answer that we were, so they encouraged us to make missionary work fun. We went to see if that Russian mother whose husband died was home; she wasn't. We therefore went contacting by the ocean. I really need to learn Russian, every single person we contacted was Russian until the end. I started up a conversation with these two nice old ladies that were sitting by the fountain of the dead silent park. One of them invited us home for coffee. We got herbal tea instead :). She started crying on the walk to her house because her husband died and she wants to know if she'll see him again. We get into her home and she has OLD missionary pamphlets and such. She is looking for what happens. She had this book, Dievs nekad nokave... "God is Never Late." I love that title! Anywho, we didn't get home for lunch until 5pm! And we had panini sandwiches, yum! It has been a long time since I had a sandwich, it made me happy. It was not as entertaining as Sister Wilson's night prayer. "I don't know if I'm allowed, but will you please help the mice to die so that we can sleep?" I had a really hard time not laughing the rest of the prayer.
Wednesday morning I had a great study for Santa Dike. I read over the Forget-Me-Not talk by Pres. Uchtdorf because that is what we were going to go over with her. I really liked the "forget not the why of the gospel." I was thinking about what the elders said about having fun. I think I have gotten too caught up in the what and how that I forgot the why. Sister W. and I finally decided to call President Boswell and ask him about having fun because we were just still stumped by it and mostly he advised us to be happy...though he said he knew we were happy. Choose happiness and find the funny things and smile. We made aprons out of pillowcases! That was fun and they are so nice to have. We had a lesson with Inga red hair, like flaming red who is a friend of a member. She is super nice, as is her cute 2-year-old Pavils. He went around chasing the cat and was a gentleman. He got me a chair to sit on and gave me an apple, it was very nice. Inga loves the church and knows that God blesses her. She definitely will be a member...eventually. Sintija drew a picture of Sister Wilson...she loves it! We were out walking around 8pm and admiring a very nice house. This woman popped out onto her roof in her wardrobe and started yelling at us...she thought we were going to graffiti her fence. Apparently sister missionaries look sketchy?? It was pretty funny though.
On Thursday I found out that my best friend Amber's mother died. This was super sad, especially because Amber is on a mission and she has two younger siblings. It definitely was a slap in the face in the way of a big reminder of the "why" of the gospel. It makes talking to people about the Plan of Salvation so different. I am so glad we have the gospel and that the Johnson family was sealed in the temple. Mamma J is just on vacation now in paradise for a while. She was an amazing mother and woman and I will miss her. She always wanted to hang out with me and Amber- come running or go to the movies.
We were taking a bus up to teach Vesma, a woman from our English class and we saw the crazy angel wing man while we were waiting for the bus. Today he was wearing a Ben Franklin wig and green. While he was talking to us I felt like I should call Liga, the lady Sister Ferrin and I found and helped baptize who has been sick. She answered her phone and said she was coming to church! Vesma is thinking about the baptismal commitment we gave her and we had to run, quite literally from her house to catch the bus. I totally almost peed my tights, because I needed to go to the ladies room several hours before. Luckily I didn't, but I did misplace my bus ticket and the controllers came! Duhn duhn duhn! In an effort to save me from a fine, Sister Wilson grabbed another bus ticket to punch it and got a fine for doing so. At that moment I found my bus ticket. Sintija helped us teach Guna (Dace Beldava's sister who comes to English) about prayer. Sintija told Guna that there was an elephant in her chair...Guna was very disturbed and confused. It was an animal cracker.
11/11/11 was a party! Mostly we ate stick things that looked like "1s" and said "Happy 11/11/11!" While contacting I found a potato spiraled out on a skewer that was fried in oil...mmm. Almost better than the homemade corndogs we made. It was quite the endeavor, making corn dogs. I prefer buying them frozen. I think I am officially the unofficial RS President. I have been invited by the District Relief Society to join in on Skype meetings about Relief Society...woot! Should be lots of fun. I don't mind. Some missionaries hate when they aren't doing "missionary work" in their small definitions of tracting and knocking. Sister Scerbinini is sick so she asked us to help the YM/YW make lasagna. I do not have that skill so it was good that we had Sister Wilson there. The youth were all tired and falling asleep, unlike little Ieva who is almost 6 years old. She insisted that I dance with her and tried to get everyone to come and be spectators. On Friday we were able to meet with Dzintra, an inactive that wasn't even on the branch list. She is nice and has a cute red dog named Muša (or Bear in Russian). She really liked us since the dog liked us. The last sister missionaries offended her so it is a good thing that she sees us as "God's children." She loves the Bible but remembered a lot about the Restoration, which is great.
Saturday was a fun day teaching English as always. We have the cutest 7-year-old who comes with her grandparents. She lived in England for a few years and only knows Russian so it helps her with her Latvian. She speaks better than the rest of the class, hands down. While I was working on some Relief Society stuff Sister Wilson watercolored...she found some paint and boy is she good!
Sunday rocked. We had 41 people at church, hurray! Dzintra, the inactive did NOT want to come when we called her in the morning, but we went to pick up the Beldavi boys which was so fun. There is nothing like walking with 2 teenagers holding their little brothers' hands going to church. By the time we got to the church we were quite the parade, Sintija and Eriks joined us on the way and we had a really spirit-filled sacrament meeting. Liga came which just brightened my day. We had a hilarious Branch Council meeting. Presidents was at home with Sarra because she is sick, so he joined us on Skype. Rihards was just being a goofball pretending to eat the microphone among other things. We had a break the fast with the elders, Rihards, and his friend Artis who was visiting from England with his cute little girl Amber. Everyone loved French Toast a la Munns along with scrambled eggs. We went harvesting in the evening. It sure is dark now! We met a lady who wasn't very nice at first but I was being bold and by the end we were friends with her, her cat, and she invited us back for tea. :)
The church is true. I know that we have a Savior who will redeem all mankind. The gospel is real. Don't forget the why of life!
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
We had a fun preparation day last Monday. I bought a new pillow and I am sleeping so much better. Now we just need to kill the mice in the walls! We were going to go biking but it was cold. And Elder Palmer has a phobia of bikes. Instead we had lunch together and then played Texas Hold'em. I almost won! If the elders would have done a better job explaining what cards win, I would have had all the mini-Monopoly money. We had Latvian class with Marika in the evening. She told stories, which was fun.
On Tuesday we ate some of "Thor's Thundercrisp" (throw "Thor" in front of anything and it is a hit) during sister exchanges. This is a new thing. After our district meeting on our purpose as missionaries we got to pick the elders' brains for ideas and get to "vent" (while your companion is still there...don't know how that works) since we never get to have exchanges. We found out that we aren't having fun! Neither of us could answer that we were, so they encouraged us to make missionary work fun. We went to see if that Russian mother whose husband died was home; she wasn't. We therefore went contacting by the ocean. I really need to learn Russian, every single person we contacted was Russian until the end. I started up a conversation with these two nice old ladies that were sitting by the fountain of the dead silent park. One of them invited us home for coffee. We got herbal tea instead :). She started crying on the walk to her house because her husband died and she wants to know if she'll see him again. We get into her home and she has OLD missionary pamphlets and such. She is looking for what happens. She had this book, Dievs nekad nokave... "God is Never Late." I love that title! Anywho, we didn't get home for lunch until 5pm! And we had panini sandwiches, yum! It has been a long time since I had a sandwich, it made me happy. It was not as entertaining as Sister Wilson's night prayer. "I don't know if I'm allowed, but will you please help the mice to die so that we can sleep?" I had a really hard time not laughing the rest of the prayer.
Wednesday morning I had a great study for Santa Dike. I read over the Forget-Me-Not talk by Pres. Uchtdorf because that is what we were going to go over with her. I really liked the "forget not the why of the gospel." I was thinking about what the elders said about having fun. I think I have gotten too caught up in the what and how that I forgot the why. Sister W. and I finally decided to call President Boswell and ask him about having fun because we were just still stumped by it and mostly he advised us to be happy...though he said he knew we were happy. Choose happiness and find the funny things and smile. We made aprons out of pillowcases! That was fun and they are so nice to have. We had a lesson with Inga red hair, like flaming red who is a friend of a member. She is super nice, as is her cute 2-year-old Pavils. He went around chasing the cat and was a gentleman. He got me a chair to sit on and gave me an apple, it was very nice. Inga loves the church and knows that God blesses her. She definitely will be a member...eventually. Sintija drew a picture of Sister Wilson...she loves it! We were out walking around 8pm and admiring a very nice house. This woman popped out onto her roof in her wardrobe and started yelling at us...she thought we were going to graffiti her fence. Apparently sister missionaries look sketchy?? It was pretty funny though.
On Thursday I found out that my best friend Amber's mother died. This was super sad, especially because Amber is on a mission and she has two younger siblings. It definitely was a slap in the face in the way of a big reminder of the "why" of the gospel. It makes talking to people about the Plan of Salvation so different. I am so glad we have the gospel and that the Johnson family was sealed in the temple. Mamma J is just on vacation now in paradise for a while. She was an amazing mother and woman and I will miss her. She always wanted to hang out with me and Amber- come running or go to the movies.
We were taking a bus up to teach Vesma, a woman from our English class and we saw the crazy angel wing man while we were waiting for the bus. Today he was wearing a Ben Franklin wig and green. While he was talking to us I felt like I should call Liga, the lady Sister Ferrin and I found and helped baptize who has been sick. She answered her phone and said she was coming to church! Vesma is thinking about the baptismal commitment we gave her and we had to run, quite literally from her house to catch the bus. I totally almost peed my tights, because I needed to go to the ladies room several hours before. Luckily I didn't, but I did misplace my bus ticket and the controllers came! Duhn duhn duhn! In an effort to save me from a fine, Sister Wilson grabbed another bus ticket to punch it and got a fine for doing so. At that moment I found my bus ticket. Sintija helped us teach Guna (Dace Beldava's sister who comes to English) about prayer. Sintija told Guna that there was an elephant in her chair...Guna was very disturbed and confused. It was an animal cracker.
11/11/11 was a party! Mostly we ate stick things that looked like "1s" and said "Happy 11/11/11!" While contacting I found a potato spiraled out on a skewer that was fried in oil...mmm. Almost better than the homemade corndogs we made. It was quite the endeavor, making corn dogs. I prefer buying them frozen. I think I am officially the unofficial RS President. I have been invited by the District Relief Society to join in on Skype meetings about Relief Society...woot! Should be lots of fun. I don't mind. Some missionaries hate when they aren't doing "missionary work" in their small definitions of tracting and knocking. Sister Scerbinini is sick so she asked us to help the YM/YW make lasagna. I do not have that skill so it was good that we had Sister Wilson there. The youth were all tired and falling asleep, unlike little Ieva who is almost 6 years old. She insisted that I dance with her and tried to get everyone to come and be spectators. On Friday we were able to meet with Dzintra, an inactive that wasn't even on the branch list. She is nice and has a cute red dog named Muša (or Bear in Russian). She really liked us since the dog liked us. The last sister missionaries offended her so it is a good thing that she sees us as "God's children." She loves the Bible but remembered a lot about the Restoration, which is great.
Saturday was a fun day teaching English as always. We have the cutest 7-year-old who comes with her grandparents. She lived in England for a few years and only knows Russian so it helps her with her Latvian. She speaks better than the rest of the class, hands down. While I was working on some Relief Society stuff Sister Wilson watercolored...she found some paint and boy is she good!
Sunday rocked. We had 41 people at church, hurray! Dzintra, the inactive did NOT want to come when we called her in the morning, but we went to pick up the Beldavi boys which was so fun. There is nothing like walking with 2 teenagers holding their little brothers' hands going to church. By the time we got to the church we were quite the parade, Sintija and Eriks joined us on the way and we had a really spirit-filled sacrament meeting. Liga came which just brightened my day. We had a hilarious Branch Council meeting. Presidents was at home with Sarra because she is sick, so he joined us on Skype. Rihards was just being a goofball pretending to eat the microphone among other things. We had a break the fast with the elders, Rihards, and his friend Artis who was visiting from England with his cute little girl Amber. Everyone loved French Toast a la Munns along with scrambled eggs. We went harvesting in the evening. It sure is dark now! We met a lady who wasn't very nice at first but I was being bold and by the end we were friends with her, her cat, and she invited us back for tea. :)
The church is true. I know that we have a Savior who will redeem all mankind. The gospel is real. Don't forget the why of life!
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Week 38
7 Nov 2011
Well, life is unpredictable. Sister Wilson and I are still together in Liepaja. If life will be predictable I will be staying here the rest of my mission and training twice in Liepaja. It just depends if President Boswell wants to throw me under the bus and have me be lost in Riga all the time. I definitely wasn't expecting it. He is having all three sisters who are leaving this transfer together in a tri-panionship. Weird. In other random news, Margarita is not going to Ireland and we now have heating on in the house. It makes life so much more pleasant to be warm. Now we just need to get rid of the mice. I always tell God, if one lands on me while I am sleeping I am going home to America. And so far there haven't been any mice in my bed, so that is good. I am sorry if any of you have written me and I haven't written back...it means that I did not get your letter. There seems to be a mail monster between America and Latvia.
Monday was a good day for us. Poor Elder Schmidt did NOT have a good day. His older brother is engaged to his ex-girlfriend person AND he broke the refridgerator while he was defrosting it and has to buy a new one. Fridges are very expensive. We ate at Doka Pizza and boy do they have yummy fries. To celebrate Halloween Sister Wilson and I made carmel apples (sooooo good!), pumpkin cookies, as well as carved a pumpkin...into a mushroom. Sister W. thought this was hilarious.
Tuesday night we got the shocking call that we are staying together. I wasn't expecting this, so we will most likely have 3 together in Liepaja, if President B. doesn't pull anything else crazy. We had a lesson from Ether 6 which Oskars loved. He can work now and is looking for a job...hurray! We did some contacting and harvesting as well, as missionaries do. We knocked into this really awesome Russian lady that had her husband pass away recently. She had two cute boys, the older one translated her Russian into English. They had us in for tea and showed us their cat. They are the cutest family and they invited us back. Hopefully we will be able to teach them!
Wednesday contacting I suppose we were looking good. A man told us we were the prettiest girls in the world. He was also drunk at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Anywho, these beautiful girls made Thor's no-knead bread and ate it with pumpkin soup (from the carved pumpkin doner). We had a nice lesson with Zelma. She didn't overfeed us today (she actually made us carrot juice) and she is a great member missionary sharing the gospel. She is doing well, although still sad taht her family isn't open to the gospel.
Thursday we went and shoved newspaper into Santa the older's windows. Aside from the cat attacks it was a lot of fun. Crocodiles, the cat, was not excited about us cleaning up more and moving boxes and she got a good chunk o' Sister Wilson. She hates cats. We also got to take Riksi, the dog out for a walk to practice pet sitting. Santa is getting surgery this month and she asked us to take the dog out for walks. Santa and I just laughed as Sister Wilson tried to control the dog. I was under the weather on Thursday so I got a blessing. It was really interesting, it talked about the people desperately needing me here in Liepaja and my trials are to give me perspective. Elder Palmer was a great mouthpiece for the Lord, and I will be fine and better. The elders then stuck around for a mini-meeting in our apartment. They all seem so happy. Elder Davidson (3rd transfer, from Texas) is very mature and speaks very well. He is the first to undergo the new MTC training, and I think it works well. He is a great missionary already. We had a pretty fun night. Before then, since I got banished to home by Sister Boswell we watched this new Russian film about how to make a happy family and ate popcorn. It was the weirdest non-church church film I have ever seen. It had English subtitles that made it totally worth it.
Friday for exercise we went to the beach. It was really pretty..foggy and calm. I was pretty hyper during planning which was just ridiculous. I forgot about my talent for making up new lyrics to songs. Sister Wilson thinks I should be sick more often. Anywho, we had church cleaning with the Elders and Margarita and Sandijs. On our way out we saw the trolls and Martins (Ieva and Olga). They seemed like they were up to no good. Sad day.
Saturday we taught English as always and had a good time. We have lots of promising people coming from our English class. We also had District Conference, which was excellent. President Boswell told us to stop living in the past and complaining and just embrace the future. The prophet Moses was better than the Pharaoh but people still complained. It is a commandment for us to be happy and we need to choose happiness. Elder Senkanes shared about when he translated the Book of Mormon into Latvian. He said he did it for two hours a day and the Lord helped him to do everything else he needed to. When he finished he thought he'd have those two hours, but they just disappeared! We need to put the important things first.
Sunday's session was from President Uchtdorf, Elder Oaks, and Sister Thomspon broadcast. I almost had to be Sister Thompson in Latvian. I convinced Sintija to do it instead so I was able to enjoy all the great talks instead of stress about translating. They all did really good and told the East Area that they need to be more faithful, come to church, pay tithing, etc. We had a great lesson with the Beldavi in the evening, Elvis was so excited to learn about the Title of Liberty. We then made our own Title of Liberty, which everyone thought was super great. We also met with Rita and started to teach her from chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel- Christlike Attributes.
The church is true, I love you all. We are so blessed by the Lord. We are here on this beautiful earth and we have a Saviour. He lives and He lives for all man-kind.
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
Read Alma 38! It is one of my new favorites.
Well, life is unpredictable. Sister Wilson and I are still together in Liepaja. If life will be predictable I will be staying here the rest of my mission and training twice in Liepaja. It just depends if President Boswell wants to throw me under the bus and have me be lost in Riga all the time. I definitely wasn't expecting it. He is having all three sisters who are leaving this transfer together in a tri-panionship. Weird. In other random news, Margarita is not going to Ireland and we now have heating on in the house. It makes life so much more pleasant to be warm. Now we just need to get rid of the mice. I always tell God, if one lands on me while I am sleeping I am going home to America. And so far there haven't been any mice in my bed, so that is good. I am sorry if any of you have written me and I haven't written back...it means that I did not get your letter. There seems to be a mail monster between America and Latvia.
Monday was a good day for us. Poor Elder Schmidt did NOT have a good day. His older brother is engaged to his ex-girlfriend person AND he broke the refridgerator while he was defrosting it and has to buy a new one. Fridges are very expensive. We ate at Doka Pizza and boy do they have yummy fries. To celebrate Halloween Sister Wilson and I made carmel apples (sooooo good!), pumpkin cookies, as well as carved a pumpkin...into a mushroom. Sister W. thought this was hilarious.
Tuesday night we got the shocking call that we are staying together. I wasn't expecting this, so we will most likely have 3 together in Liepaja, if President B. doesn't pull anything else crazy. We had a lesson from Ether 6 which Oskars loved. He can work now and is looking for a job...hurray! We did some contacting and harvesting as well, as missionaries do. We knocked into this really awesome Russian lady that had her husband pass away recently. She had two cute boys, the older one translated her Russian into English. They had us in for tea and showed us their cat. They are the cutest family and they invited us back. Hopefully we will be able to teach them!
Wednesday contacting I suppose we were looking good. A man told us we were the prettiest girls in the world. He was also drunk at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Anywho, these beautiful girls made Thor's no-knead bread and ate it with pumpkin soup (from the carved pumpkin doner). We had a nice lesson with Zelma. She didn't overfeed us today (she actually made us carrot juice) and she is a great member missionary sharing the gospel. She is doing well, although still sad taht her family isn't open to the gospel.
Thursday we went and shoved newspaper into Santa the older's windows. Aside from the cat attacks it was a lot of fun. Crocodiles, the cat, was not excited about us cleaning up more and moving boxes and she got a good chunk o' Sister Wilson. She hates cats. We also got to take Riksi, the dog out for a walk to practice pet sitting. Santa is getting surgery this month and she asked us to take the dog out for walks. Santa and I just laughed as Sister Wilson tried to control the dog. I was under the weather on Thursday so I got a blessing. It was really interesting, it talked about the people desperately needing me here in Liepaja and my trials are to give me perspective. Elder Palmer was a great mouthpiece for the Lord, and I will be fine and better. The elders then stuck around for a mini-meeting in our apartment. They all seem so happy. Elder Davidson (3rd transfer, from Texas) is very mature and speaks very well. He is the first to undergo the new MTC training, and I think it works well. He is a great missionary already. We had a pretty fun night. Before then, since I got banished to home by Sister Boswell we watched this new Russian film about how to make a happy family and ate popcorn. It was the weirdest non-church church film I have ever seen. It had English subtitles that made it totally worth it.
Friday for exercise we went to the beach. It was really pretty..foggy and calm. I was pretty hyper during planning which was just ridiculous. I forgot about my talent for making up new lyrics to songs. Sister Wilson thinks I should be sick more often. Anywho, we had church cleaning with the Elders and Margarita and Sandijs. On our way out we saw the trolls and Martins (Ieva and Olga). They seemed like they were up to no good. Sad day.
Saturday we taught English as always and had a good time. We have lots of promising people coming from our English class. We also had District Conference, which was excellent. President Boswell told us to stop living in the past and complaining and just embrace the future. The prophet Moses was better than the Pharaoh but people still complained. It is a commandment for us to be happy and we need to choose happiness. Elder Senkanes shared about when he translated the Book of Mormon into Latvian. He said he did it for two hours a day and the Lord helped him to do everything else he needed to. When he finished he thought he'd have those two hours, but they just disappeared! We need to put the important things first.
Sunday's session was from President Uchtdorf, Elder Oaks, and Sister Thomspon broadcast. I almost had to be Sister Thompson in Latvian. I convinced Sintija to do it instead so I was able to enjoy all the great talks instead of stress about translating. They all did really good and told the East Area that they need to be more faithful, come to church, pay tithing, etc. We had a great lesson with the Beldavi in the evening, Elvis was so excited to learn about the Title of Liberty. We then made our own Title of Liberty, which everyone thought was super great. We also met with Rita and started to teach her from chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel- Christlike Attributes.
The church is true, I love you all. We are so blessed by the Lord. We are here on this beautiful earth and we have a Saviour. He lives and He lives for all man-kind.
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
Read Alma 38! It is one of my new favorites.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Week 37
Another week has gone by. This has been a long transfer for me. And it has been long...7 weeks! We are having transfers on Thursday and we still don't know what is happening. The weather has been so gorgeous as of late. The heating is coming on November 1st, there is still a mouse in the house, but God is still smiling upon us. The weather has been unseasonably dry and warm. I am grateful for that as well as all my other many blessings.
Happy Halloween! Yes they do celebrate Halloween here. We actually saw some trick-or-treaters Sunday night (we still don't know why). It definitely isn't quite as big as in America (no decorations, no special candy to buy, etc.) Happy name day today Grandma Nadine!
On Monday I got to try frikadella soup. Frikadella soup is very popular in Latvia and I had it along with some garlic and cheese bread (also very Latvian and unhealthy) at the 3 Kungs cafe with the elders. The sun was shining so we even got some ice cream after. You know you are in Latvia when you have on a coat and gloves, but you are still eating an ice cream cone outside because it is sunny. We found out today that our Margarita is heading off to Ireland to be a nanny there. We are going to miss her dearly. We met with long-time member Marika Monday evening. Along with helping us with the language she informed us that we need to keep our feet warm otherwise we will get sick (among other tidbits from Latvian culture).
We've been able to do a lot of contacting this week. On Tuesday I contacted the kindest old man from Lithuania. He's been living in Latvia for several years now and he was so fun to talk to. Our District Meeting was on how to be happy. We started off by discussing what our definition of happiness is, what makes us happy, etc. It is an interesting exercise, I recommend trying it. We then read in 2 Nephi 5 about things that help us to "live after the manner of happiness." The highlight of the day was definitely visiting with Guna (our investigator who is a member's sister). We ended up taking Sintija along because we saw her on the way to the meeting. Sintija was a great help and we now know that Guna still doesn't believe the whole authority business.
I have just been on a French kick. I found something that was in the similitude of a "pain au chocolat" at the tirgus (market) on Wednesday. I was fairly impressed. We were late to service at Rihard's because we helped President Scerbinins show the church to a friend visiting from the middle of nowhere, Latvia. I found out at service that I do not remove wallpaper "smuki" (cute) enough. Sister Wilson was informed by Rihards that you shouldn't stand on chairs with shoes on. We just both laughed because we both would have at our respective dwellings in America. Anywho, we made some kicking taco soup. If you want to know what that extra "kick" is, try adding some ginger root to your taco soup. We had a lunch meeting with a nice 63 year old, Karmena. She mostly just likes talking to us young folks and seeing what we think. It was quite the game to see how to sneak in the gospel without her knowing. She fed us tea, honey (separate from the tea), boiled potatoes, and coleslaw. It was all very nice. As always, God helped to expand our stomachs because it was right after our taco soup. We visiting cute old member Ausma when her growly "sveiki" (hey!). Her eye operation went well and she was glad to see us, as was her dancing dog (yes, the dog dances on its two hind legs).
On Thursday we had weekly planning and our weekly meeting with Santa Dike (recent convert). We challenged her to read The Book of Mormon by the end of the year and she is taking the challenge (10 pages a day, I dare you all to do it!). We had a few meetings not show up so we went harvesting/knocking/bothering people in their homes/whatever you prefer to call it. Naturally the first door that opened was also the last. This 89 year old half deaf lady just let us on in and yelled our ears off. She was half deaf and could only understand Sister Wilson because she was sitting closer to her, so I sat back and enjoyed the show. She was a super nice old lady, going a little senile, but that is okay. When we were leaving her neighbor, in broken Latvian, told us thank you for visiting her. That really meant a lot (I'm pretty sure he heard all of the conversation through the ceiling, bless his heart).
Friday morning we taught Vineta (inactive 30 year old with 2 kids) about prayer and it was a nice lesson. We invited Vineta to start praying two times a day. We had more perfect weather for contacting. We had a meeting with Guna at the church to watch the Restoration film. Due to people being late and such, we ended up having Oskars and Santa D. in the lesson with Guna. It went really well and they told her essentially that yeah, it sounds crazy, but you've got to pray and eventually you will get it. We had a lesson with Oskars and Santa helped out. Jinkies, she is just so funny. Today she was talking about how she isn't going to the Celestial Kingdom because she doesn't want to get married. She said the closing prayer and asked God to forgive her for not wanting to get married and to help her have that desire. God love her, she is so great! I'm pretty sure we were all chuckling in that prayer. Santa really has the greatest prayers though, because they truly are conversations with God. She is an example to me! We had a pioneer party at the church. Members got to make forts, hunt rabbits, cross daunting waters, etc. It was quite the event!
I was sick on Saturday. Boo, not fun. I mostly wanted to just chop everything off from above my shoulders, but no worries, I am on the mend. We had cleaning and English as usual and our class continues to grow! They just all invite their friends! We made repentance airplanes with the Beldavi family as we celebrated Elvis' name day. Lauris and Raivo thought the airplanes were the greatest things ever. I personally liked the example of how to repent because I got to steal candy from Sister Wilson and eat it. :)
Sunday was a nice block. I taught third hour to the Relief Society, Priesthood, Young Men, and Young Women. I had a LOT of time and with the Lord's help I was able to keep pulling stuff out of thin air and fully taught all 5 steps of the gospel of Jesus Christ along with the difference between immortality and eternal life. Phew! In other random events, someone stole a 20$ box of cookies from the church. After having a nice Sunday dinner of chicken and rice, we called many people who didn't answer and then went out by the lake to knock on doors there. We met some rather nice younger people. Mostly I think Sister Wilson and her big blue eyes enamour them, but anyway, that is that!
The church is true. God lives.
Love you all,
Sister Lindstrom
Happy Halloween! Yes they do celebrate Halloween here. We actually saw some trick-or-treaters Sunday night (we still don't know why). It definitely isn't quite as big as in America (no decorations, no special candy to buy, etc.) Happy name day today Grandma Nadine!
On Monday I got to try frikadella soup. Frikadella soup is very popular in Latvia and I had it along with some garlic and cheese bread (also very Latvian and unhealthy) at the 3 Kungs cafe with the elders. The sun was shining so we even got some ice cream after. You know you are in Latvia when you have on a coat and gloves, but you are still eating an ice cream cone outside because it is sunny. We found out today that our Margarita is heading off to Ireland to be a nanny there. We are going to miss her dearly. We met with long-time member Marika Monday evening. Along with helping us with the language she informed us that we need to keep our feet warm otherwise we will get sick (among other tidbits from Latvian culture).
We've been able to do a lot of contacting this week. On Tuesday I contacted the kindest old man from Lithuania. He's been living in Latvia for several years now and he was so fun to talk to. Our District Meeting was on how to be happy. We started off by discussing what our definition of happiness is, what makes us happy, etc. It is an interesting exercise, I recommend trying it. We then read in 2 Nephi 5 about things that help us to "live after the manner of happiness." The highlight of the day was definitely visiting with Guna (our investigator who is a member's sister). We ended up taking Sintija along because we saw her on the way to the meeting. Sintija was a great help and we now know that Guna still doesn't believe the whole authority business.
I have just been on a French kick. I found something that was in the similitude of a "pain au chocolat" at the tirgus (market) on Wednesday. I was fairly impressed. We were late to service at Rihard's because we helped President Scerbinins show the church to a friend visiting from the middle of nowhere, Latvia. I found out at service that I do not remove wallpaper "smuki" (cute) enough. Sister Wilson was informed by Rihards that you shouldn't stand on chairs with shoes on. We just both laughed because we both would have at our respective dwellings in America. Anywho, we made some kicking taco soup. If you want to know what that extra "kick" is, try adding some ginger root to your taco soup. We had a lunch meeting with a nice 63 year old, Karmena. She mostly just likes talking to us young folks and seeing what we think. It was quite the game to see how to sneak in the gospel without her knowing. She fed us tea, honey (separate from the tea), boiled potatoes, and coleslaw. It was all very nice. As always, God helped to expand our stomachs because it was right after our taco soup. We visiting cute old member Ausma when her growly "sveiki" (hey!). Her eye operation went well and she was glad to see us, as was her dancing dog (yes, the dog dances on its two hind legs).
On Thursday we had weekly planning and our weekly meeting with Santa Dike (recent convert). We challenged her to read The Book of Mormon by the end of the year and she is taking the challenge (10 pages a day, I dare you all to do it!). We had a few meetings not show up so we went harvesting/knocking/bothering people in their homes/whatever you prefer to call it. Naturally the first door that opened was also the last. This 89 year old half deaf lady just let us on in and yelled our ears off. She was half deaf and could only understand Sister Wilson because she was sitting closer to her, so I sat back and enjoyed the show. She was a super nice old lady, going a little senile, but that is okay. When we were leaving her neighbor, in broken Latvian, told us thank you for visiting her. That really meant a lot (I'm pretty sure he heard all of the conversation through the ceiling, bless his heart).
Friday morning we taught Vineta (inactive 30 year old with 2 kids) about prayer and it was a nice lesson. We invited Vineta to start praying two times a day. We had more perfect weather for contacting. We had a meeting with Guna at the church to watch the Restoration film. Due to people being late and such, we ended up having Oskars and Santa D. in the lesson with Guna. It went really well and they told her essentially that yeah, it sounds crazy, but you've got to pray and eventually you will get it. We had a lesson with Oskars and Santa helped out. Jinkies, she is just so funny. Today she was talking about how she isn't going to the Celestial Kingdom because she doesn't want to get married. She said the closing prayer and asked God to forgive her for not wanting to get married and to help her have that desire. God love her, she is so great! I'm pretty sure we were all chuckling in that prayer. Santa really has the greatest prayers though, because they truly are conversations with God. She is an example to me! We had a pioneer party at the church. Members got to make forts, hunt rabbits, cross daunting waters, etc. It was quite the event!
I was sick on Saturday. Boo, not fun. I mostly wanted to just chop everything off from above my shoulders, but no worries, I am on the mend. We had cleaning and English as usual and our class continues to grow! They just all invite their friends! We made repentance airplanes with the Beldavi family as we celebrated Elvis' name day. Lauris and Raivo thought the airplanes were the greatest things ever. I personally liked the example of how to repent because I got to steal candy from Sister Wilson and eat it. :)
Sunday was a nice block. I taught third hour to the Relief Society, Priesthood, Young Men, and Young Women. I had a LOT of time and with the Lord's help I was able to keep pulling stuff out of thin air and fully taught all 5 steps of the gospel of Jesus Christ along with the difference between immortality and eternal life. Phew! In other random events, someone stole a 20$ box of cookies from the church. After having a nice Sunday dinner of chicken and rice, we called many people who didn't answer and then went out by the lake to knock on doors there. We met some rather nice younger people. Mostly I think Sister Wilson and her big blue eyes enamour them, but anyway, that is that!
The church is true. God lives.
Love you all,
Sister Lindstrom
Monday, October 24, 2011
Week 36
Hello world.
It is rather nice weather in Liepaja- except for in our house. We have officially hit the sub-60F mark inside. Needless to say we get cold when we are studying and it feels like it is warmer when we are outside.
So last Monday I lost the rubber gasket to the shower..uh oh! We went to a few hardware stores and they didn't have anything that would work. We paused the gasket search to go to Karosta- the war forts. It was the perfect day- not too cold or windy. The lighting was also perfect for all of us amateur photographers and we all had a great time. While searching for sea glass a huge wave came up and got three out of five of us all wet. My running shoes needed a bath anyway though. We came home, I said a little prayer and we were able to disemble the shower to find the gasket to reassemble it!
We had a fun transportation blunder. Just so you all know, the number 3 mikrins (Scooby-doo style van) doesn't go the same was as the number 3 bus. Needless to say we didn't get lost, but were just late to our meeting with Vera (lady from English) and her daughter Diana. They live in Lauma (named for the lingerie factory there). We had a lesson planned for Vera other than the Plan of Salvation, but she kept on bringing up what she read in the pamphlet about it so we taught her an amazingly spirit-filled lesson. She was so excited to be sharing this information with her daughter. After the lesson she showed her the picture we had drawn of the plan. "See," she said, "we want to live here together in the highest kingdom." So good! Sadly, they are in the elders area so we need to pass them off.
So I may not be my mother but her cinnamon rolls still turned out really good. I don't think I am going to make them soon if only because I could eat all of them. The elders also enjoyed having cinnamon twists and thought they were the greatest thing. Elder Alder led a great discussion about desires and how they need to become God's desires for us to be better. We ran some random errands. Later in the day we had a great lesson (thanks to Sister Wilson and her testimony and linking thoughts skills) with Santa Dike (recent convert- the funny one with the dog) about personal revelation. We also had a really good lesson with Oskars (recent convert) about faith from Alma 32. It wasn't your typical Alma 32 though- we focused on the tree and not the seed which made for a really interesting discussion. I recommend studying it.
Wednesday morning we woke up and got on a bus to go to Riga for Zone Conference. The ride was gorgeous. It reminded me a lot of Sweden when I was there. I also got to talk a lot with our token Swede at Zone Conference (he is called to the Baltics Russian speaking). He is a funny one and he just laughed and told me that I look super Swedish and was suprised that I didn't know Swedish. The Boswells did a great job talking about how God takes what you have and will make it enough. We compared ourselves to the miracle with the fishes and loaves- all we have to do is give God all that we have and he will bless and multiply it so that there will be more than enough (there were 12 extra baskets!). Sister Boswell talked about being vessels and that it is okay if we aren't a perfect vessel (see below for the parable she shared). I was able to do practices for the teaching parts of zone conference with Elder Burr and Sister Stout who both came out to the Baltics with me. Elder Burr is doing well- he loves being with Elder Mills and has had a hard mission so far. Sister Stout is doing so great and is crossing her fingers that President Boswell sticks us together in a zebra (aka two different language speaking companions together). They both want me to come up to Riga and play with them next transfer. It was Elder Lynch's birthday...he is finally 19...an official missionary! (We like teasing him)
Margarita showed up at the church in Riga! She was up visiting a friend. When she saw 6'9" Elder Graham it was hilarious. "Wow! He is tall!" And then she hid behind me. We stayed over with the sisters in their new apartment in Center which is very cute and fun. Lots of bright paint colors on the walls. They are all doing well and are all in denial about leaving at the end of next transfer.
Thursday we were able to see Elder Seitz (the funny short Russian elder who stole my boots and wore them in Imanta) when we went to get Sister Wilson's new visa. He is still as funny as ever, telling us about the chocolate museli shortage in Estonia and that we should buy a ton and sell it on the black elder market. We all took a taxi down to the bus station and then we sisters went and found some books, Sister Wilson set off an alarm going INTO a store, and we found the best french-esque bakery. It was really good. I found an almond croissant there that was only second to my first one in Marseille. Needless to say I could have died at that moment and been happy. The bus ride was nothing special and neither was our "day in the life of a missionary activity." It was quite the flop. We did have more members than missionaries though (just barely) so that was good.
On Friday we stopped by Lidija R.'s (the lady Sister Ferrin and I reactivated.). She is still being silly and not letting go of what the Branch President said to her. She knows that the church is true but said she won't come back until there is another American BP. We told her that that is never going to happen again (Liepaja thinks the church government is like a democracy- that you can revolt and kick people out). Anywho, it was really sad to see her place her salvation in jeopardy over one sentence that was spoken. We had a much better lesson with Zenta. Roberts her handicapped grandson stuck his chocolate fingers on Sister Wilson's tights and not mine, so that was always nice that it wasn't me. No, I'm joking, but her lesson did go very well. We won't get to meet with her for a few weeks because they have to go up for testing to see if Roberts needs his legs amputated. We had another weird lesson with Nina (aka the Professor Trewlany lady). We helped her with English and then ATTEMPTED (emphasis on attempt) to teach her. She was telling us that Moses didn't write some of the Bible and she didn't know who Abraham was. Aye aye aye, she was not wanting to listen. We watched the RS broadcast with Marika and Margarita (the only people who showed up). We all really enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a lesson with Margarita about God's love and how we need to take things to His feet and just let them go and forgive ourselves.
We did weekly planning on Saturday before teaching our English class which keeps on growing. Everyone keeps bringing their friends, so I guess that is a big compliment! We cleaned after trying not to offend all our English class by teaching them about the word of wisdom and then went and had a great lesson with Skaidra (a member). She is doing great, as is her super fat cat that attacked Sister Wilson's bag. We had a spirit-filled lesson about the temple and she is thinking about going next spring. She is such a great member, but needs a different job so she can come to church more.
Well we had 25 whole people at church. 7 of those (aka one third) being the Branch Presidency and missionaries. Yikes! Four were investigators, so that was good. We were able to teach investigator Santa S. (the teenager) and her two sisters the restoration for the combined YM/YW/primary Sunday School [that is what I call multitasking]. Rihards helped hold up pictures (thank you first counselor to the Branch President). I taught the lesson in Relief Society again. We went over a very detailed Plan of Salvation and answered their questions (or at least attempted to). My favorite question: "What if we want different parents in heaven? Can we trade? What if ours our bad?" We had a Branch Council meeting, ate the last of the creamy soup we've been eating all week and then we went harvesting. Sister Wilson was telling me scary missionary stories and then at one door we rang the doorbell and this man started screaming (not yelling but screaming). We booked it down all five flights of stairs, confusing greatly a man who was coming into his apartment building. We made it home okay. :) The sky is really pretty here- you can see the stars at night- Venus, Cassiopeia, the big dipper.
That's all the adventures for this week!
The church is true!
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
It is rather nice weather in Liepaja- except for in our house. We have officially hit the sub-60F mark inside. Needless to say we get cold when we are studying and it feels like it is warmer when we are outside.
So last Monday I lost the rubber gasket to the shower..uh oh! We went to a few hardware stores and they didn't have anything that would work. We paused the gasket search to go to Karosta- the war forts. It was the perfect day- not too cold or windy. The lighting was also perfect for all of us amateur photographers and we all had a great time. While searching for sea glass a huge wave came up and got three out of five of us all wet. My running shoes needed a bath anyway though. We came home, I said a little prayer and we were able to disemble the shower to find the gasket to reassemble it!
We had a fun transportation blunder. Just so you all know, the number 3 mikrins (Scooby-doo style van) doesn't go the same was as the number 3 bus. Needless to say we didn't get lost, but were just late to our meeting with Vera (lady from English) and her daughter Diana. They live in Lauma (named for the lingerie factory there). We had a lesson planned for Vera other than the Plan of Salvation, but she kept on bringing up what she read in the pamphlet about it so we taught her an amazingly spirit-filled lesson. She was so excited to be sharing this information with her daughter. After the lesson she showed her the picture we had drawn of the plan. "See," she said, "we want to live here together in the highest kingdom." So good! Sadly, they are in the elders area so we need to pass them off.
So I may not be my mother but her cinnamon rolls still turned out really good. I don't think I am going to make them soon if only because I could eat all of them. The elders also enjoyed having cinnamon twists and thought they were the greatest thing. Elder Alder led a great discussion about desires and how they need to become God's desires for us to be better. We ran some random errands. Later in the day we had a great lesson (thanks to Sister Wilson and her testimony and linking thoughts skills) with Santa Dike (recent convert- the funny one with the dog) about personal revelation. We also had a really good lesson with Oskars (recent convert) about faith from Alma 32. It wasn't your typical Alma 32 though- we focused on the tree and not the seed which made for a really interesting discussion. I recommend studying it.
Wednesday morning we woke up and got on a bus to go to Riga for Zone Conference. The ride was gorgeous. It reminded me a lot of Sweden when I was there. I also got to talk a lot with our token Swede at Zone Conference (he is called to the Baltics Russian speaking). He is a funny one and he just laughed and told me that I look super Swedish and was suprised that I didn't know Swedish. The Boswells did a great job talking about how God takes what you have and will make it enough. We compared ourselves to the miracle with the fishes and loaves- all we have to do is give God all that we have and he will bless and multiply it so that there will be more than enough (there were 12 extra baskets!). Sister Boswell talked about being vessels and that it is okay if we aren't a perfect vessel (see below for the parable she shared). I was able to do practices for the teaching parts of zone conference with Elder Burr and Sister Stout who both came out to the Baltics with me. Elder Burr is doing well- he loves being with Elder Mills and has had a hard mission so far. Sister Stout is doing so great and is crossing her fingers that President Boswell sticks us together in a zebra (aka two different language speaking companions together). They both want me to come up to Riga and play with them next transfer. It was Elder Lynch's birthday...he is finally 19...an official missionary! (We like teasing him)
Margarita showed up at the church in Riga! She was up visiting a friend. When she saw 6'9" Elder Graham it was hilarious. "Wow! He is tall!" And then she hid behind me. We stayed over with the sisters in their new apartment in Center which is very cute and fun. Lots of bright paint colors on the walls. They are all doing well and are all in denial about leaving at the end of next transfer.
Thursday we were able to see Elder Seitz (the funny short Russian elder who stole my boots and wore them in Imanta) when we went to get Sister Wilson's new visa. He is still as funny as ever, telling us about the chocolate museli shortage in Estonia and that we should buy a ton and sell it on the black elder market. We all took a taxi down to the bus station and then we sisters went and found some books, Sister Wilson set off an alarm going INTO a store, and we found the best french-esque bakery. It was really good. I found an almond croissant there that was only second to my first one in Marseille. Needless to say I could have died at that moment and been happy. The bus ride was nothing special and neither was our "day in the life of a missionary activity." It was quite the flop. We did have more members than missionaries though (just barely) so that was good.
On Friday we stopped by Lidija R.'s (the lady Sister Ferrin and I reactivated.). She is still being silly and not letting go of what the Branch President said to her. She knows that the church is true but said she won't come back until there is another American BP. We told her that that is never going to happen again (Liepaja thinks the church government is like a democracy- that you can revolt and kick people out). Anywho, it was really sad to see her place her salvation in jeopardy over one sentence that was spoken. We had a much better lesson with Zenta. Roberts her handicapped grandson stuck his chocolate fingers on Sister Wilson's tights and not mine, so that was always nice that it wasn't me. No, I'm joking, but her lesson did go very well. We won't get to meet with her for a few weeks because they have to go up for testing to see if Roberts needs his legs amputated. We had another weird lesson with Nina (aka the Professor Trewlany lady). We helped her with English and then ATTEMPTED (emphasis on attempt) to teach her. She was telling us that Moses didn't write some of the Bible and she didn't know who Abraham was. Aye aye aye, she was not wanting to listen. We watched the RS broadcast with Marika and Margarita (the only people who showed up). We all really enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a lesson with Margarita about God's love and how we need to take things to His feet and just let them go and forgive ourselves.
We did weekly planning on Saturday before teaching our English class which keeps on growing. Everyone keeps bringing their friends, so I guess that is a big compliment! We cleaned after trying not to offend all our English class by teaching them about the word of wisdom and then went and had a great lesson with Skaidra (a member). She is doing great, as is her super fat cat that attacked Sister Wilson's bag. We had a spirit-filled lesson about the temple and she is thinking about going next spring. She is such a great member, but needs a different job so she can come to church more.
Well we had 25 whole people at church. 7 of those (aka one third) being the Branch Presidency and missionaries. Yikes! Four were investigators, so that was good. We were able to teach investigator Santa S. (the teenager) and her two sisters the restoration for the combined YM/YW/primary Sunday School [that is what I call multitasking]. Rihards helped hold up pictures (thank you first counselor to the Branch President). I taught the lesson in Relief Society again. We went over a very detailed Plan of Salvation and answered their questions (or at least attempted to). My favorite question: "What if we want different parents in heaven? Can we trade? What if ours our bad?" We had a Branch Council meeting, ate the last of the creamy soup we've been eating all week and then we went harvesting. Sister Wilson was telling me scary missionary stories and then at one door we rang the doorbell and this man started screaming (not yelling but screaming). We booked it down all five flights of stairs, confusing greatly a man who was coming into his apartment building. We made it home okay. :) The sky is really pretty here- you can see the stars at night- Venus, Cassiopeia, the big dipper.
That's all the adventures for this week!
The church is true!
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
Monday, October 17, 2011
Week 35
Well, I won't lie, I'm cold. Socialism has its pluses and minuses. Minus is that heating doesn't come on until November. We have been enjoying about 5C weather outside and 16C inside which is cold when you are sitting studying. Luckily we have a microwave and rice bags as well as thermals and blankets. Can't wait for the winter!
Monday was rubbish weather so we couldn't go to Karosta. Instead we had the elders over for leftover soup and bread. Elder Schmidt wanted some of "Thor's thunder crisp" (aka apple crisp) and a double batch so that is what we made; it was HUGE! The elders couldn't eat it all in one day so we had it the next day at district meeting. In the evening we went out knocking in apartment buildings and met the nicest Russian atheist man. He wanted us to come in and talk but 1. we don't speak Russian and 2. not allowed. We got his information for Elder Palmer who called him. He said, "Oh I don't want to talk to you and make you not believe in God but those girls of yours are so great out on the streets."
We had a really great District Meeting this week about charity and love and what that means and how we get it (Elder Alder does a GREAT job teaching) in which he brought up DC 11:20. I liked it compared to Moses 1:39. Our work is to be obedient (DC 11:20). God's work is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39). People will always have their agency and can do what they will. All we can do is be obedient!
After our District Meeting we headed out to Rihard's to stack wood. Being girls they wanted to give us the "easier" job which was totally not easier. Instead of stacking wood in the shed, we were supposed to grab a pile of wood and then haul it up the stairs and stack it in Rihard's hall. And boy did we stack it. And then we ran into the ceiling so we stopped. It was fun and so nice to be working outside like at the farm. The weather was also sunny for this firewood adventure. Afterwards we had a meeting with Presidents and Rihards in which we found out Rihards is engaged! About time! Though it won't be until next July. We are pretty excited for him. We had flying saucers for lunch since we bonded over them last week and then had a lesson with Guna from English (who is the Beldavi's aunt...weird!)
Wednesday we got to watch the first session of General Conference in English. So good! We also had a good lesson with Zenta about baptism and what exactly it is. She had some questions about what if we sin after we are baptized...she is a smart cookie. :) We stopped and said "hi" to Lidija and Ausma. They are both doing fine and we took a muffin to Marika. She came to her door as we were writing a note. We confused her a lot since our meeting with her was scheduled for Friday. We went to a meeting at a non-existent address. The elders always have the most reliable referrals :). We did meet some very nice people along the way though. Santa D. doesn't have cancer and Riksi still has fleas but both are doing well.
Conference was amazing yet again. Talk after talk has been answers to questions (except for the one about having babies...and the chicken drum one) Thursday was a good feeding day at the sister missionaries' apartment. We made pumpkin-carrot soup as well as no knead bread. It was amazing. It made up with the ice berg that we hit that we didn't know existed. One of our older members feels guilty for her son's disability that he may have gotten when he hit his head when he was younger. She feels responsible for not preventing the accident. It was really sad to see her, she has been carrying around this burden for a long time. I cried with her. We were able to see President Uchtdorf's RS talk which was amazing. If you haven't watched it, you should. We made popcorn in a pot (my new favorite snack as of yesterday's practice session) and had a party and watched the Restoration film and then had a testimony meeting after. Aivars Fishmeisters was there and I think his heart is softening slowly. After the party (aka pasakums) we had a lesson with Rita and Sandijs about repentance using the story of the sons of Mosiah. The atonement is real!
On Friday we watched the Priesthood session which was amazing. That is so crazy about senior missionaries! We do love senior missionaries. I'm expecting dad to be off on a mission before I get home. I enjoyed all the talks on missionary work as well. Many speakers spoke to the missionaries. We made banana fajitas for lunch and then had a meeting with Rafaella. She is in her late teens and investigated the church a few years ago. She is thinking she is on the "middle path" of life- not Satan's but not God's path. We were bold and told her that if she wasn't on God's path she was on Satan's and that she needed to decide where she wants to go in life and after this life. We challenged her to pray every day for the peace she had when she was investigating the church and to read Ether 12. It was a good lesson, but not at all what we planned. We had our meeting with Marika and talked for way too long about food. We are officially all bonded now in our love for cooking and Marika came to sacrament meeting, so that was good.
On Saturday another session of GC. Quote of the week: "Oh look! The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has matching pink snuggies!" Elder Palmer is quite the comic. Sunday night when we watched conference he was speaking instead of singing the closing hymn is this old person/Gollum from Lord of the Rings/just really funny voice. Anywho, we cleaned the church as usual and had a very large English class again. We had a leftover fiesta and then went to the beach to see the end of the sunset. It was so gorgeous and it wasn't windy which made it even that more enjoyable. We also had time to search for past church members. None of them lived at their old addresses, but everyone was very kind and helpful, especially with finding buildings. This one man was stopped by a woman who only spoke Russian who was trying to help us. He then looked around, called his wife, and told several other people and called after us several times to redirect us
Sunday was a miracle Sunday. I fasted for Oskars who is having Word of Wisdom problems and felt a lot better about it (I cried about that one too...stupid Satan is just getting everyone). He is going to kick the habit again. Few of the "regulars" were there, but there were so many inactives that haven't been in who knows how long. They all new each other and it was exciting to see them all there. They enjoyed Elder Palmer's great talk about his conversion as well as our impromptu missionary musical number. Ruta G. taught a great lesson about service in Sunday School and I taught about the restoration in Relief Society. Sister Wilson is now basically the Primary President. We are just going to rule the whole church down in Liepaja :). Not really, but it is a blessing to be able to help and use our talents.
Create a great week. Enjoy the weather and being able to control your heating in your homes!
Loves,
Sister Lindstrom
Monday was rubbish weather so we couldn't go to Karosta. Instead we had the elders over for leftover soup and bread. Elder Schmidt wanted some of "Thor's thunder crisp" (aka apple crisp) and a double batch so that is what we made; it was HUGE! The elders couldn't eat it all in one day so we had it the next day at district meeting. In the evening we went out knocking in apartment buildings and met the nicest Russian atheist man. He wanted us to come in and talk but 1. we don't speak Russian and 2. not allowed. We got his information for Elder Palmer who called him. He said, "Oh I don't want to talk to you and make you not believe in God but those girls of yours are so great out on the streets."
We had a really great District Meeting this week about charity and love and what that means and how we get it (Elder Alder does a GREAT job teaching) in which he brought up DC 11:20. I liked it compared to Moses 1:39. Our work is to be obedient (DC 11:20). God's work is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39). People will always have their agency and can do what they will. All we can do is be obedient!
After our District Meeting we headed out to Rihard's to stack wood. Being girls they wanted to give us the "easier" job which was totally not easier. Instead of stacking wood in the shed, we were supposed to grab a pile of wood and then haul it up the stairs and stack it in Rihard's hall. And boy did we stack it. And then we ran into the ceiling so we stopped. It was fun and so nice to be working outside like at the farm. The weather was also sunny for this firewood adventure. Afterwards we had a meeting with Presidents and Rihards in which we found out Rihards is engaged! About time! Though it won't be until next July. We are pretty excited for him. We had flying saucers for lunch since we bonded over them last week and then had a lesson with Guna from English (who is the Beldavi's aunt...weird!)
Wednesday we got to watch the first session of General Conference in English. So good! We also had a good lesson with Zenta about baptism and what exactly it is. She had some questions about what if we sin after we are baptized...she is a smart cookie. :) We stopped and said "hi" to Lidija and Ausma. They are both doing fine and we took a muffin to Marika. She came to her door as we were writing a note. We confused her a lot since our meeting with her was scheduled for Friday. We went to a meeting at a non-existent address. The elders always have the most reliable referrals :). We did meet some very nice people along the way though. Santa D. doesn't have cancer and Riksi still has fleas but both are doing well.
Conference was amazing yet again. Talk after talk has been answers to questions (except for the one about having babies...and the chicken drum one) Thursday was a good feeding day at the sister missionaries' apartment. We made pumpkin-carrot soup as well as no knead bread. It was amazing. It made up with the ice berg that we hit that we didn't know existed. One of our older members feels guilty for her son's disability that he may have gotten when he hit his head when he was younger. She feels responsible for not preventing the accident. It was really sad to see her, she has been carrying around this burden for a long time. I cried with her. We were able to see President Uchtdorf's RS talk which was amazing. If you haven't watched it, you should. We made popcorn in a pot (my new favorite snack as of yesterday's practice session) and had a party and watched the Restoration film and then had a testimony meeting after. Aivars Fishmeisters was there and I think his heart is softening slowly. After the party (aka pasakums) we had a lesson with Rita and Sandijs about repentance using the story of the sons of Mosiah. The atonement is real!
On Friday we watched the Priesthood session which was amazing. That is so crazy about senior missionaries! We do love senior missionaries. I'm expecting dad to be off on a mission before I get home. I enjoyed all the talks on missionary work as well. Many speakers spoke to the missionaries. We made banana fajitas for lunch and then had a meeting with Rafaella. She is in her late teens and investigated the church a few years ago. She is thinking she is on the "middle path" of life- not Satan's but not God's path. We were bold and told her that if she wasn't on God's path she was on Satan's and that she needed to decide where she wants to go in life and after this life. We challenged her to pray every day for the peace she had when she was investigating the church and to read Ether 12. It was a good lesson, but not at all what we planned. We had our meeting with Marika and talked for way too long about food. We are officially all bonded now in our love for cooking and Marika came to sacrament meeting, so that was good.
On Saturday another session of GC. Quote of the week: "Oh look! The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has matching pink snuggies!" Elder Palmer is quite the comic. Sunday night when we watched conference he was speaking instead of singing the closing hymn is this old person/Gollum from Lord of the Rings/just really funny voice. Anywho, we cleaned the church as usual and had a very large English class again. We had a leftover fiesta and then went to the beach to see the end of the sunset. It was so gorgeous and it wasn't windy which made it even that more enjoyable. We also had time to search for past church members. None of them lived at their old addresses, but everyone was very kind and helpful, especially with finding buildings. This one man was stopped by a woman who only spoke Russian who was trying to help us. He then looked around, called his wife, and told several other people and called after us several times to redirect us
Sunday was a miracle Sunday. I fasted for Oskars who is having Word of Wisdom problems and felt a lot better about it (I cried about that one too...stupid Satan is just getting everyone). He is going to kick the habit again. Few of the "regulars" were there, but there were so many inactives that haven't been in who knows how long. They all new each other and it was exciting to see them all there. They enjoyed Elder Palmer's great talk about his conversion as well as our impromptu missionary musical number. Ruta G. taught a great lesson about service in Sunday School and I taught about the restoration in Relief Society. Sister Wilson is now basically the Primary President. We are just going to rule the whole church down in Liepaja :). Not really, but it is a blessing to be able to help and use our talents.
Create a great week. Enjoy the weather and being able to control your heating in your homes!
Loves,
Sister Lindstrom
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Week 34
Last Monday was not my Monday. It was one of those "Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day" kind of days. I won't go into details. The evening was really great though! We went up to Lauma (an area of Liepaja named for the GIANT lingere factory there) and had an English/gospel lesson with one of our English students, Vera. Her 13-year-old daughter joined in. We followed the Spirit and decided to talk about The Book of Mormon instead of what we had planned and we had a great lesson in which the Spirit was very strong. They said that they were most definitely going to read The Book of Mormon. Vera even came to a session of General Conference on Saturday and said she really enjoyed it!
Tuesday was very intimidating walking into District Meeting. Before District Meeting Sister Wilson walked into a pole. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone about that, but it was way too funny not to. The three assistants (I don't know why we have three) to the mission president as well as one of the Latvian zone leaders were there along with our elders. That many people in suits is quite intimidating. That didn't scare away the Spirit though and I had probably one of the best District Meetings. We first talked about fear and Joshua becoming the prophet after Moses. We then talked about obedience and the power of words. I was almost crying during the roleplay. Elder Palmer is a hoot. I was trying to practice and he was pretending to be an old Russian bab. He is planning on writing a 7-novel fantasy series when he gets home if that gives you a glimpse into how creative and expressive he is. Apparently his companions get bedtime stories from his fantasy series and can make up their own characters to be in his books. Too bad he isn't a sister! We had a meeting to plan our Book of Mormon party and it should be a fun one. We are in charge of Jeopardy and brownies. We had a yummy greek salad for lunch and were able to visit again with Guna, another English student. By the end of the lesson our minds were officially blown...Guna's sister is Dace Beldava, a church member! We are going to have to figure out how to use this to our advantage.
On Wednesday I typed up the warm mission plan (right down my alley, I like making things cute on the computer!) and then we went out in the chilly wind to visit Zenta. She is progressing slowly. She still needs to come to church which will be a real struggle with her handicapped grandson, but at the end of the lesson she was asking us about baptism in our church. She still doesn't believe that only one church is right (God is one so it doesn't matter what church you go to according to most people here in Latvia). We then went and visited cute ole Ausma. She is a saint, still sharing the gospel with everyone and it was just a pleasure to be with her. We did some calling to invite members to the party on Thursday before going to visit Santa D. They still don't know what is wrong with her and she is getting a sonogram sooner than later. We taught Jana Gromenko, an inactive Russian member with help from Margarita (aka Rita). Jana has a great light and testimony and she enjoyed learning about the Restoration.
Thursday's grand event was the party. We finished translating Book of Mormon Jeopardy questions in the morning as well as made Book of Mormon brownies. We had Aunt Joyce's indian fry bread for lunch (which, when left over and reheated with jam tastes like a toaster strudel for those of you who were wondering how to make your own toaster strudels [those good frozen ones with the frosting packs]) and then had a lesson with Oskars as well as the Frolavi afterwards. I talked to Uldis on Skype (he is away in that random land with his new wife that he can't get a visa for) and he asked about the church and stuff. Thankfully the internet glitched so we could get to teaching the Eriks and Sintija. Eriks made it through the lesson with the bribe of playing Uno afterwards. He kicked our butts. He won and so we were playing for second place for about five minutes. He got bored so he took seven more cards and started playing again and won again. So yes, he won the same game twice. We then all headed to the church and Sintija and Sandijs sat in for Margarita's lesson about missionary work. The Book of Mormon party went really well. We had head ribbons for each team and we played Jeopardy. We all got the final question wrong so both teams lost. We then had a spiritual thought by Elder Schmidt, a teaching model by Margarita and I about how to share the gospel and then we had everyone write down their mission goals and practice.
Friday was really cold! We visited Vineta (inactive) who we got to pray at the end of the lesson...progress! We also went with the elders to declare. We did some shopping for Sunday dinner, had lunch and did church cleaning which was the best ever. Sarra and Ieva put on giant gloves and helped me clean the bathrooms. The bathrooms ended up cleaner than we were, which is always good [for the bathrooms]. Presidents sang some opera to us and we taught Santa S. and her sister Alina about prophets and then we went harvesting.
Saturday we got honked at twice on our run. I've never been honked at here, I guess we were looking good...or being chased by someone with a knife, who knows. We watched Saturday morning session with the branch and then had lunch with them. We did weekly planning and then took Margarita to help us teach inactive Maris Spagis. He seems nice and we will be meeting with him again. We went knocking with Rita and went to the Beldavi's in the evening. Raivo and Lauris prayed again...so cute. Elvis was there and had some great answers.
Sunday was a busy day. Sarra, Ieva, and Eriks helped us make four different kinds of soup while everyone watched conference. They were all a big hit. We then cleaned, made calls, made primary song signs and that was about it.
Times up!
Tuesday was very intimidating walking into District Meeting. Before District Meeting Sister Wilson walked into a pole. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone about that, but it was way too funny not to. The three assistants (I don't know why we have three) to the mission president as well as one of the Latvian zone leaders were there along with our elders. That many people in suits is quite intimidating. That didn't scare away the Spirit though and I had probably one of the best District Meetings. We first talked about fear and Joshua becoming the prophet after Moses. We then talked about obedience and the power of words. I was almost crying during the roleplay. Elder Palmer is a hoot. I was trying to practice and he was pretending to be an old Russian bab. He is planning on writing a 7-novel fantasy series when he gets home if that gives you a glimpse into how creative and expressive he is. Apparently his companions get bedtime stories from his fantasy series and can make up their own characters to be in his books. Too bad he isn't a sister! We had a meeting to plan our Book of Mormon party and it should be a fun one. We are in charge of Jeopardy and brownies. We had a yummy greek salad for lunch and were able to visit again with Guna, another English student. By the end of the lesson our minds were officially blown...Guna's sister is Dace Beldava, a church member! We are going to have to figure out how to use this to our advantage.
On Wednesday I typed up the warm mission plan (right down my alley, I like making things cute on the computer!) and then we went out in the chilly wind to visit Zenta. She is progressing slowly. She still needs to come to church which will be a real struggle with her handicapped grandson, but at the end of the lesson she was asking us about baptism in our church. She still doesn't believe that only one church is right (God is one so it doesn't matter what church you go to according to most people here in Latvia). We then went and visited cute ole Ausma. She is a saint, still sharing the gospel with everyone and it was just a pleasure to be with her. We did some calling to invite members to the party on Thursday before going to visit Santa D. They still don't know what is wrong with her and she is getting a sonogram sooner than later. We taught Jana Gromenko, an inactive Russian member with help from Margarita (aka Rita). Jana has a great light and testimony and she enjoyed learning about the Restoration.
Thursday's grand event was the party. We finished translating Book of Mormon Jeopardy questions in the morning as well as made Book of Mormon brownies. We had Aunt Joyce's indian fry bread for lunch (which, when left over and reheated with jam tastes like a toaster strudel for those of you who were wondering how to make your own toaster strudels [those good frozen ones with the frosting packs]) and then had a lesson with Oskars as well as the Frolavi afterwards. I talked to Uldis on Skype (he is away in that random land with his new wife that he can't get a visa for) and he asked about the church and stuff. Thankfully the internet glitched so we could get to teaching the Eriks and Sintija. Eriks made it through the lesson with the bribe of playing Uno afterwards. He kicked our butts. He won and so we were playing for second place for about five minutes. He got bored so he took seven more cards and started playing again and won again. So yes, he won the same game twice. We then all headed to the church and Sintija and Sandijs sat in for Margarita's lesson about missionary work. The Book of Mormon party went really well. We had head ribbons for each team and we played Jeopardy. We all got the final question wrong so both teams lost. We then had a spiritual thought by Elder Schmidt, a teaching model by Margarita and I about how to share the gospel and then we had everyone write down their mission goals and practice.
Friday was really cold! We visited Vineta (inactive) who we got to pray at the end of the lesson...progress! We also went with the elders to declare. We did some shopping for Sunday dinner, had lunch and did church cleaning which was the best ever. Sarra and Ieva put on giant gloves and helped me clean the bathrooms. The bathrooms ended up cleaner than we were, which is always good [for the bathrooms]. Presidents sang some opera to us and we taught Santa S. and her sister Alina about prophets and then we went harvesting.
Saturday we got honked at twice on our run. I've never been honked at here, I guess we were looking good...or being chased by someone with a knife, who knows. We watched Saturday morning session with the branch and then had lunch with them. We did weekly planning and then took Margarita to help us teach inactive Maris Spagis. He seems nice and we will be meeting with him again. We went knocking with Rita and went to the Beldavi's in the evening. Raivo and Lauris prayed again...so cute. Elvis was there and had some great answers.
Sunday was a busy day. Sarra, Ieva, and Eriks helped us make four different kinds of soup while everyone watched conference. They were all a big hit. We then cleaned, made calls, made primary song signs and that was about it.
Times up!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Week 33
Monday we went scarf hunting and were quite successful. You have to love second-hand stores. Sister Wilson found this really awfully epic ugly sweater from Humana for a lat. She was beaming all day. It is good that the little things make her happy. We did emails and shopping and the rest of our day was consumed by moving the elders to a different apartment. It took us six hours. We did it all using the tram (and they didn't call any members to help...silly elders). It was quite entertaining though...mattresses, microwaves, weight sets, ironing boads, chairs, coat racks...all on the tram. We got A LOT of looks. The elders are now moved in to the top floor (no elevator naturally) of a very nice building near the Rock Cafe.
Jacob 5! Elder Schmidt said something profound in District Meeting today.. we are the trench diggers and God brings the water. I really liked that. We had Sister Wilson style haystacks for lunch. These haystacks included (but were not limited to) raw pepper, green onion, olives, carrots, pineapple as well as a chicken sauce and the rice. It was different but not bad. We bonded over our love of flying saucers (hot dogs sliced in half with mashed potatoes and cheese on top). You should try it if you haven't. The trolls (Ieva and Olga) called to set up a meeting and then didn't show up. They haven't been to church in a long time. I was working on the visiting teaching list and Sister Wilson decided to press the red button on the power cord. This naturally turned the computer off and I hadn't saved what I was working on, of course. It was pretty funny. "I thought the button was broken and didn't go to anything!" Oh dear. In other happy news we had a "smarter man" (our landlord's words, not mine) come and fix our washing machine. I am so grateful for working washing machines!
Wednesday we had a good meeting with Zenta. We invited her to baptism. She wants to know everything first but she has the desire and we look forward to taking her step by step closer to Christ. We also had a meeting with Maija, this cute lady that we called from a potential investigator sheet that was who knows how old. She seems like she has a sincere desire as well to learn. We had a nice little park bench meeting in the sunshine before the rain came later in the day. We had a lesson with Rita and Sandijs about the Holy Ghost. It then turned into appropriate media. Sister Lindstrom says you cannot watch Saw. It is not a Moses commandment, but a Sister Lindstrom one. You should all take note of my addendum to the commandments. We met with Santa. She is doing quite a bit better.
Last night we got a present in Liepaja...a Russian elder. We therefore played basketball with the elders in the morning so that they could bring me my package (thank you by the way! It is fun to have bright colors and the new tights. I was most excited for the toothbrush head, lol. The shoes will hopefully work, I tried wearing them once and they killed my feet. I haven't tried the lamp yet because we don't know if it needs a converter or not...it didn't have the voltage thing listed on it. Another tangent...I sent Sister Layton a package today, as well as kirstin). We all played basketball terribly. We blamed it on the dark. The sun is now coming up at 7:30. It is going to be a battle getting up at 6:30 in the winter. I already don't enjoy trying to start my day when the sun hasn't even come out to play. Good thing I won't be in Latvia forever! Did some more calling today and had a visit with Viktorija (Santa's friend). President helped with the lesson since Russian is her native language. This helped so much. She was SO close to taking a Book of Mormon. She did agree to meet again so we are hoping we will be able to help her see that the restored gospel is true. We made calzones again today. They were even bigger than last time...yikes! Neither of us could finish them. We visited inactive Velta. She was much happier today. We decided to use Sister Wilson's mad singing skills to our advantage and sang a hymn. We happened to choose her favorite hymn so she sang along. You gotta love the Spirit. :) We tried to drop by less-active Lidija's. She wouldn't let us in. She thinks I got her sick and didn't appreciate that we brought President last week. Oops. We went contacting and knocking today as well...no exciting adventures from that.
Friday we went and dropped off some banana bread to Nadezda. Poor lady is taking care of her ailing mom and is sick. I also bought 5 tram passes...I am such a nice missionary. Thankfully everyone (missionaries) paid me back. It was a beautiful autumn day, perfect for contacting. We taked to a really nice girl (by we I mean Sister Wilson and I stood at the side) who asked why I wasn't talking. Sister Wilson said that I could speak, and even better than her. "Oh, so you are letting her practice. How nice of you." Lol. I enjoyed that. We also ran into eternal investigator Aivars Fishmisters. He is my favorite. He was so raised in the communist times and thinks that the church heirarchy is corrupt. He is such a fun jokster. He decided we should embezzle church property and go to Cyprus. His mom died and you can see his heart softening a little bit. He just needs a testimony about church leaders and prophets! Rita helped us by translating in a meeting with less-active Tatiana. She is doing well but can recognize that something is missing in her life (THE GOSPEL!). We made soup, fixed my skirt (the one you made was too long mom...we hemmed it about 3 inches).
Our neighbors have a great sound system. They like to play good music sometimes, but mostly awful music. They also like to play it at our bedtime. Sister Wilson was ready to kill someone. Bless her heart. I didn't think it was THAT bad, but it didn't keep me from sleeping.
Saturday we were able to watch some of the Relief Society broadcast, go contacting, teach English, clean. The highlight of the day was probably when Sister Wilson got scared to death by this little dog when we were out harvesting. There were also a lot of scary old looking ladies that we knocked into.
Sunday was a great testimony meeting. All the District Presidency came and all bore their testimonies. Elder Palmer made up a Latvian testimony on the fly. It was so good and the branch LOVED it. We were both in primary for third hour. We went with the elders to visit Oskars in the hospital. He is looking so good (kidney stone treatments). The elders forgot bread for the sacrament so we used a mint...it was an interesting sacrament experience. I didn't know you could use pretty much whatever. I'm thinking cookies and milk would be awesome, but that is just me. We enjoyed hearing Queen "Bohemian Rhapsody" (yes I did sing along) on the way there and country music in the micrins on the way back. We met up with the Boswells at the church and had soup and cornbread with them to break our fast. It was a lot of fun; I love President Boswell's stories. They stopped by on their drive up from Lithuania.
The church is true.
Love you all,
Sister Lindstrom
Jacob 5! Elder Schmidt said something profound in District Meeting today.. we are the trench diggers and God brings the water. I really liked that. We had Sister Wilson style haystacks for lunch. These haystacks included (but were not limited to) raw pepper, green onion, olives, carrots, pineapple as well as a chicken sauce and the rice. It was different but not bad. We bonded over our love of flying saucers (hot dogs sliced in half with mashed potatoes and cheese on top). You should try it if you haven't. The trolls (Ieva and Olga) called to set up a meeting and then didn't show up. They haven't been to church in a long time. I was working on the visiting teaching list and Sister Wilson decided to press the red button on the power cord. This naturally turned the computer off and I hadn't saved what I was working on, of course. It was pretty funny. "I thought the button was broken and didn't go to anything!" Oh dear. In other happy news we had a "smarter man" (our landlord's words, not mine) come and fix our washing machine. I am so grateful for working washing machines!
Wednesday we had a good meeting with Zenta. We invited her to baptism. She wants to know everything first but she has the desire and we look forward to taking her step by step closer to Christ. We also had a meeting with Maija, this cute lady that we called from a potential investigator sheet that was who knows how old. She seems like she has a sincere desire as well to learn. We had a nice little park bench meeting in the sunshine before the rain came later in the day. We had a lesson with Rita and Sandijs about the Holy Ghost. It then turned into appropriate media. Sister Lindstrom says you cannot watch Saw. It is not a Moses commandment, but a Sister Lindstrom one. You should all take note of my addendum to the commandments. We met with Santa. She is doing quite a bit better.
Last night we got a present in Liepaja...a Russian elder. We therefore played basketball with the elders in the morning so that they could bring me my package (thank you by the way! It is fun to have bright colors and the new tights. I was most excited for the toothbrush head, lol. The shoes will hopefully work, I tried wearing them once and they killed my feet. I haven't tried the lamp yet because we don't know if it needs a converter or not...it didn't have the voltage thing listed on it. Another tangent...I sent Sister Layton a package today, as well as kirstin). We all played basketball terribly. We blamed it on the dark. The sun is now coming up at 7:30. It is going to be a battle getting up at 6:30 in the winter. I already don't enjoy trying to start my day when the sun hasn't even come out to play. Good thing I won't be in Latvia forever! Did some more calling today and had a visit with Viktorija (Santa's friend). President helped with the lesson since Russian is her native language. This helped so much. She was SO close to taking a Book of Mormon. She did agree to meet again so we are hoping we will be able to help her see that the restored gospel is true. We made calzones again today. They were even bigger than last time...yikes! Neither of us could finish them. We visited inactive Velta. She was much happier today. We decided to use Sister Wilson's mad singing skills to our advantage and sang a hymn. We happened to choose her favorite hymn so she sang along. You gotta love the Spirit. :) We tried to drop by less-active Lidija's. She wouldn't let us in. She thinks I got her sick and didn't appreciate that we brought President last week. Oops. We went contacting and knocking today as well...no exciting adventures from that.
Friday we went and dropped off some banana bread to Nadezda. Poor lady is taking care of her ailing mom and is sick. I also bought 5 tram passes...I am such a nice missionary. Thankfully everyone (missionaries) paid me back. It was a beautiful autumn day, perfect for contacting. We taked to a really nice girl (by we I mean Sister Wilson and I stood at the side) who asked why I wasn't talking. Sister Wilson said that I could speak, and even better than her. "Oh, so you are letting her practice. How nice of you." Lol. I enjoyed that. We also ran into eternal investigator Aivars Fishmisters. He is my favorite. He was so raised in the communist times and thinks that the church heirarchy is corrupt. He is such a fun jokster. He decided we should embezzle church property and go to Cyprus. His mom died and you can see his heart softening a little bit. He just needs a testimony about church leaders and prophets! Rita helped us by translating in a meeting with less-active Tatiana. She is doing well but can recognize that something is missing in her life (THE GOSPEL!). We made soup, fixed my skirt (the one you made was too long mom...we hemmed it about 3 inches).
Our neighbors have a great sound system. They like to play good music sometimes, but mostly awful music. They also like to play it at our bedtime. Sister Wilson was ready to kill someone. Bless her heart. I didn't think it was THAT bad, but it didn't keep me from sleeping.
Saturday we were able to watch some of the Relief Society broadcast, go contacting, teach English, clean. The highlight of the day was probably when Sister Wilson got scared to death by this little dog when we were out harvesting. There were also a lot of scary old looking ladies that we knocked into.
Sunday was a great testimony meeting. All the District Presidency came and all bore their testimonies. Elder Palmer made up a Latvian testimony on the fly. It was so good and the branch LOVED it. We were both in primary for third hour. We went with the elders to visit Oskars in the hospital. He is looking so good (kidney stone treatments). The elders forgot bread for the sacrament so we used a mint...it was an interesting sacrament experience. I didn't know you could use pretty much whatever. I'm thinking cookies and milk would be awesome, but that is just me. We enjoyed hearing Queen "Bohemian Rhapsody" (yes I did sing along) on the way there and country music in the micrins on the way back. We met up with the Boswells at the church and had soup and cornbread with them to break our fast. It was a lot of fun; I love President Boswell's stories. They stopped by on their drive up from Lithuania.
The church is true.
Love you all,
Sister Lindstrom
Monday, September 26, 2011
Week 32
Mari 26 September 2011
Hello hello, ciao ciao,
Monday was a wild preparation day. We were more tuckered out than prepared by the end of it with all of the running around we were doing. I trimmed Sister Wilson's hair and then we went off to do errands and such. We spent quite a while at JYSK (the wannabe IKEA of Latvia, but totally kind of lame) discussing the qualities of different rugs. We are both penny pinchers and so shopping was fun. We definitely bought way too much. Yay for food storage! We bought kebabs at the only kebab place in town with some nasty cold fries. We couldn't get them to taste any better. So we just had a whirlwind of activities and when it came to working time we got to meet with the Beldavi family (members). We had fun singing "Wicked" on the way over. Sister Wilson is quite the singer. I enjoy the random singing episodes I hear while we are in the house, they make my heart giggle. We had a good lesson with the Beldavi boys and mom about prophets. Inguss wasn't there, but Elvis was (the 13-year old). Raivo, Lauris, and Elvis all said they want to serve missions. That was such a miracle to hear Elvis say that (he is inactive)!
On Tuesday I felt like rubbish. The black lung of the MTC is back!! We were still able to go out and work though. We had a semi-awkward District Meeting on the Spirit...Sister Wilson isn't used to small districts. We went to help Zelma Golta with the lesson for Relief Society on signs of the Second Coming. She fed us potato pancakes, tea, AND ice cream. It was an awful lot of food. I am glad I don't serve in America where the members stuff you with roasts and steak all the time. We had a super fun lesson with Santa S. (investigator). Rita and Ieva (the Branch President's 6 year old) helped out. Ieva was so fun to have in the lesson. She got to be God and give Santa the candy blessings. Later in the evening we went to Guna's home (a legit house!). She is in our English class so that she can help her kids with their English homework. She is a super nice lady and seemed fairly receptive to our spiritual thought. Sister Wilson and I have been having fun teaching together. She really brings the Spirit in with her thoughts.
Wednesday morning we got to go and visit Vineta (inactive) finally! Her kids are still sick. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and Martina her little girl had fun helping me draw the plan. We had service at Rihard's (who sang Britney Spears to us this week) with our new pair of hooligan elders. Elder Schmidt and Elder Alder came with their punk beanies on looking like trouble. We had some delightful minestrone soup. Good thing it is good because we will be having it for several meals. Maybe one day I will learn how to make less soup. Poor Santa (recent convert) is under the weather. After teaching her about the patterns of apostasy and restoration the elders came over and gave her a blessing. We had an awesome awesome awesome lesson that Kristina (BP's wife) helped on. We went to Jana Gromenko's, a Russian inactive member. I was totally expecting this older boring lady but she was so hip and fun and cute. We are hoping that with time she will be active again (curse those busy schedules!).
Thursday was a party! It was Sister Wilson's 1-year mark as a missionary. We had humongous calzones and almond pear cake to celebrate. We also did weekly planning and tried to take apart our washing machine. You see, it is broken and Sister Wilson has skills with anything that she can use her Leatherman on. The elders came and showed us how to clean the filter. They let us keep the rusty bobby pins and they took the two lat coin. Too bad the washing machine is still broken. We met with Oskars who is getting surgery on Tuesday. He is doing okay. Bless that man's heart, he has many blessings in store for hm. We then had the youth party and afterwards I had my first Skype conference. We had it with President S. on the other end. We being us sisters, the elders, Rihards, and Kaspars, the branch mission leader and we discussed the Branch goals for next year. The girls saw us on the screen and started waving and making faces, it was pretty cute. I got calls from Sister Boswell and then Dr. Mayberry (the area doctor who can't even give you drugs or anything, just listen to you since he is in Germany). He wants me to get an inhaler and see a lung doctor. Oh boy!
Finding a lung doctor isn't fun. We spent most of companionship study calling different phone numbers trying to get an appointment. Luckily, European socialized medicine can play to your advantage. We went to the pharmacy and you can get inhalers without a prescription for the low price of $4.50. Thank you communism for saving me a trip to a lung doctor (at least for now). We went to Lidija's with President so he could apologize and we gave her tram tickets to come to church. (She didn't come on Sunday though :{ ) We then stopped by Skaidre's and shared a quick thought from Mosiah 15:5 with her which she loved. We then spent the rest of our Friday eating couscous, watching Together Forever with Rita and Sandijs, and having Latvian at Marika's. She fed us mayonaise cake. Elder Schmidt thought the whipped cream was mayonaise and not that the chocolate cake had mayonaise in it. We all just about died laughing. Elder Alder ate at least half of that cake by himself. It was insane. By the end he was sitting cross legged with the whipped cream bowl dipping the cake in the bowl. Gross! The people love him though.
We had a HUGE English class this Saturday...thirteen people (and all women!). After teaching our class we taught Santa S. (investigator) about Agency from the Strength for Youth pamphlet. She really enjoyed it all. We cleaned the church as always. I got to clean the windows today which was fun and then we went home and ate and then went to the elders. You see, the repairman said they'd need to send our washing machine away to be fixed and we needed to wash our whites. We remembered all our wash, but not the phone. We also didn't know which apartment number was the elders. Luckily Sister Wilson's gut is better than mine so we found it on the first knock. Their stairwell is spooky though! We had another adventure in the dark, visiting Santa with Rihards. She might have to have surgery on her breast. We then headed back to the Elder's, collected our laundry and then had a lovely evening walk home.
On Sunday Sister Wilson gave a great talk. And then I gave an improv one because she was the only assigned speaker. The Tolmacovi were at church (miracle!), but we still had maybe 25 people there. No one was there to teach primary so I used my sunbeam skills and pulled out an hour lesson to keep the children entertained. It actually went really well...Lehi's Dream along with the interpretation, drawing pictures of the vision, and apple snacks from the tree of life. I then had to run to Relief Society to conduct that and left Sister Wilson to man music time on her own with Ludmila. Relief Society was good. Besides myself only 3 sisters attended. We had branch council and then a meeting with Kristina to plan visiting teaching. The girls stole our bags and name tags and were sister missionaries. It was pretty darn cute. They also found Sister Wilson's makeup, so I got LOTS of lipgloss...mmm.
My mouse keeps on glitching, so that is just going to have to be all for this week so that it doesn't freeze and you don't get a letter!
Hello hello, ciao ciao,
Monday was a wild preparation day. We were more tuckered out than prepared by the end of it with all of the running around we were doing. I trimmed Sister Wilson's hair and then we went off to do errands and such. We spent quite a while at JYSK (the wannabe IKEA of Latvia, but totally kind of lame) discussing the qualities of different rugs. We are both penny pinchers and so shopping was fun. We definitely bought way too much. Yay for food storage! We bought kebabs at the only kebab place in town with some nasty cold fries. We couldn't get them to taste any better. So we just had a whirlwind of activities and when it came to working time we got to meet with the Beldavi family (members). We had fun singing "Wicked" on the way over. Sister Wilson is quite the singer. I enjoy the random singing episodes I hear while we are in the house, they make my heart giggle. We had a good lesson with the Beldavi boys and mom about prophets. Inguss wasn't there, but Elvis was (the 13-year old). Raivo, Lauris, and Elvis all said they want to serve missions. That was such a miracle to hear Elvis say that (he is inactive)!
On Tuesday I felt like rubbish. The black lung of the MTC is back!! We were still able to go out and work though. We had a semi-awkward District Meeting on the Spirit...Sister Wilson isn't used to small districts. We went to help Zelma Golta with the lesson for Relief Society on signs of the Second Coming. She fed us potato pancakes, tea, AND ice cream. It was an awful lot of food. I am glad I don't serve in America where the members stuff you with roasts and steak all the time. We had a super fun lesson with Santa S. (investigator). Rita and Ieva (the Branch President's 6 year old) helped out. Ieva was so fun to have in the lesson. She got to be God and give Santa the candy blessings. Later in the evening we went to Guna's home (a legit house!). She is in our English class so that she can help her kids with their English homework. She is a super nice lady and seemed fairly receptive to our spiritual thought. Sister Wilson and I have been having fun teaching together. She really brings the Spirit in with her thoughts.
Wednesday morning we got to go and visit Vineta (inactive) finally! Her kids are still sick. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and Martina her little girl had fun helping me draw the plan. We had service at Rihard's (who sang Britney Spears to us this week) with our new pair of hooligan elders. Elder Schmidt and Elder Alder came with their punk beanies on looking like trouble. We had some delightful minestrone soup. Good thing it is good because we will be having it for several meals. Maybe one day I will learn how to make less soup. Poor Santa (recent convert) is under the weather. After teaching her about the patterns of apostasy and restoration the elders came over and gave her a blessing. We had an awesome awesome awesome lesson that Kristina (BP's wife) helped on. We went to Jana Gromenko's, a Russian inactive member. I was totally expecting this older boring lady but she was so hip and fun and cute. We are hoping that with time she will be active again (curse those busy schedules!).
Thursday was a party! It was Sister Wilson's 1-year mark as a missionary. We had humongous calzones and almond pear cake to celebrate. We also did weekly planning and tried to take apart our washing machine. You see, it is broken and Sister Wilson has skills with anything that she can use her Leatherman on. The elders came and showed us how to clean the filter. They let us keep the rusty bobby pins and they took the two lat coin. Too bad the washing machine is still broken. We met with Oskars who is getting surgery on Tuesday. He is doing okay. Bless that man's heart, he has many blessings in store for hm. We then had the youth party and afterwards I had my first Skype conference. We had it with President S. on the other end. We being us sisters, the elders, Rihards, and Kaspars, the branch mission leader and we discussed the Branch goals for next year. The girls saw us on the screen and started waving and making faces, it was pretty cute. I got calls from Sister Boswell and then Dr. Mayberry (the area doctor who can't even give you drugs or anything, just listen to you since he is in Germany). He wants me to get an inhaler and see a lung doctor. Oh boy!
Finding a lung doctor isn't fun. We spent most of companionship study calling different phone numbers trying to get an appointment. Luckily, European socialized medicine can play to your advantage. We went to the pharmacy and you can get inhalers without a prescription for the low price of $4.50. Thank you communism for saving me a trip to a lung doctor (at least for now). We went to Lidija's with President so he could apologize and we gave her tram tickets to come to church. (She didn't come on Sunday though :{ ) We then stopped by Skaidre's and shared a quick thought from Mosiah 15:5 with her which she loved. We then spent the rest of our Friday eating couscous, watching Together Forever with Rita and Sandijs, and having Latvian at Marika's. She fed us mayonaise cake. Elder Schmidt thought the whipped cream was mayonaise and not that the chocolate cake had mayonaise in it. We all just about died laughing. Elder Alder ate at least half of that cake by himself. It was insane. By the end he was sitting cross legged with the whipped cream bowl dipping the cake in the bowl. Gross! The people love him though.
We had a HUGE English class this Saturday...thirteen people (and all women!). After teaching our class we taught Santa S. (investigator) about Agency from the Strength for Youth pamphlet. She really enjoyed it all. We cleaned the church as always. I got to clean the windows today which was fun and then we went home and ate and then went to the elders. You see, the repairman said they'd need to send our washing machine away to be fixed and we needed to wash our whites. We remembered all our wash, but not the phone. We also didn't know which apartment number was the elders. Luckily Sister Wilson's gut is better than mine so we found it on the first knock. Their stairwell is spooky though! We had another adventure in the dark, visiting Santa with Rihards. She might have to have surgery on her breast. We then headed back to the Elder's, collected our laundry and then had a lovely evening walk home.
On Sunday Sister Wilson gave a great talk. And then I gave an improv one because she was the only assigned speaker. The Tolmacovi were at church (miracle!), but we still had maybe 25 people there. No one was there to teach primary so I used my sunbeam skills and pulled out an hour lesson to keep the children entertained. It actually went really well...Lehi's Dream along with the interpretation, drawing pictures of the vision, and apple snacks from the tree of life. I then had to run to Relief Society to conduct that and left Sister Wilson to man music time on her own with Ludmila. Relief Society was good. Besides myself only 3 sisters attended. We had branch council and then a meeting with Kristina to plan visiting teaching. The girls stole our bags and name tags and were sister missionaries. It was pretty darn cute. They also found Sister Wilson's makeup, so I got LOTS of lipgloss...mmm.
My mouse keeps on glitching, so that is just going to have to be all for this week so that it doesn't freeze and you don't get a letter!
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