Week 2 in Latvia

Mari and Sister Stout in Germany, on the way to the Baltic Mission


Hello World,
I am doing well. I bought some epic Ecco boots that were 40% off (thank heavens). We also went to the Jake's (a senior couple) and ate some super yummy food. They are so good to us!
Sister Sutterfield and I have been doing a lot of cooking and baking lately. There was a Relief Society activity on Saturday that we ended up helping with...A LOT. By a lot I mean we cooked the chicken divan and then the Relief Society president pulled me from the English class I was teaching at one (every Saturday from 1-3!) and had me show the sisters how to make the chicken divan (another double batch for all 15 of them) and THEN told them I was showing them how to make no bake cookies as well. Now mind you I don't even know how to say this in French, let alone Latvian. Luckily cooking involves visual aids so I got along just fine.
Most people in Latvia seem to be eternal investigators as one might say. A lot of the members investigated the church for 5-7 years before joining. We didn't get to see Andris this week because he went to the country for the weekend.
We have been working with Erika, a younger woman with a girl. She can be very mad at God and doesn't understand why her life sucks (understandably, she has been through a lot). We have gotten her to read the Book of Mormon and are going to answer some of her questions and she seems to be doing a lot better. It was her daughter Evalyna's name day this week. It is basically like a second birthday party, except everyone just comes to your house and brings you goods! I also have a name day, March 25, so I except to see you all then!
I am in Imanta, which is a lot more mellow than the city. It is mostly old apartment buildings that the Russians built.
The architecture is Riga can be pretty neat. Some of it is blah...it really depends on where you are. Some of it does look western European though. The people can be friendly and less friendly, it depends. The apartment is really large compared to my last apartment. We both have desks but no kitchen table. The kitchen has a stove and oven and sink and no shower, so that is good. I think it is a big apartment but I guess the Riga Center apartment is a lot larger.
The language is going well. I don't understand much but yesterday I had a whole entire conversation with a woman all by myself and taught her things. It sounds like there will be a new program for newbies being implemented so we get more companionship study time. So hopefully we can plan lessons so that I can participate in more. I would, but I don't know what anyone is saying!
My time is up..sorry! I'll write more next time!!

Love,
Masa L





Mari with the five bolts and crazy key to her apartment.

Made it to Latvia. Week 1.

So I made it to Latvia! Luckily I brought the sunshine with me. I heard it is normally grey all winter. My companion is great. Her name is Sister Hailey Sutterfield and she is very obedient and organized. Our personalities get along well together so it is good. We are serving in an area called Imanta which is outside of Riga Center. The people here are a lot less friendly then in France and many just shoo you away. There are also lots of Russians, whom I definitely don't understand.
Our last weekend at the MTC was good. Everyone went a little hay wire, so it was hard to study. We did get the epic epistle done though, so that was a good thing.
We had to wake up wicked early (wicked as in out by 4am) to go to the airport. All of our flights went well and we met Mormons at every stop except for in Germany. I talked to a few people, but no truly promising prospects. I love Sister Stout, a sister who flew with us. She is going Russian speaking and has an amazing conversion story.
President and Sister Dance picked us all up from the airport and then dropped us off to go contacting with some of the missionaries serving in Riga. It was VERY VERY VERY cold without boots. I couldn't feel my toes. Sister Dance fed us lots and we had lots of training to learn how things are done in this mission. We stayed at the mission home until Thursday getting training and living permits, having lessons from the Dances as well as the Assistants to the President.
Thursday morning we went to the church in Riga center to meet with our new companions. They are as follows: E. Burr is in Jelgava with Worsleys
E. Lynch is in Liepaja with Johnson. President Dance thought he was so tricky and had them all switch nametags. We took a taxi to our area and then we did our morning studies and headed out contacting. We came back for lunch and some unpacking and then we planned and went to teach my first lesson to a Latvian. His name is Andris and he has been investigating the church for about 7 months. He was taught about the Book of Mormon and will hopefully learn to love the book and want to be baptized.
On Friday we spent a lot of time contacting outside while walking as well as breaking into domes (aka apartment complexes, and yes, we break in) and knocking on doors. We were able to talk to a few cute old babushkas but everyone else won't even open the door. They have two doors here (one right after the other) so they will open one door and yell through the other door Who is it, what do you want, or a variety of other phrases that I don't understand. We also went and visited Inga who was baptized several months ago. She is a really sweet 27/29ish year old girl. We just shared some scriptures with her.
On Saturday all the missionaries teach English. It is a two hour long class broken up into 3 levels. Sister S. and I take the intermediate class and we had two people there today. It went well. We did a lot of calling from the area book (and our planning on doing so) because it hasn't been touched in months. Latvians don't like planning... we set up some appointments (sort of) with people that we called. They said they wanted to talk and to call next week for an appointment. So apparently having a blank page for the next day is pretty normal here in Latvia.
Church went well on Sunday. I met a lot of nice people but I don't remember any of their names and apparently they were all asking me if I'm from Sweden. They have stuff with the brand Lindstrom from Sweden everywhere here. The Branch president is about 29 and is named President Blooms. He kidnapped us as well as the elders after church for a rather long meeting at his house about investigators and such. He is apparently the ward council meeting. His wife made us dinner and we got to laugh at his goofy furball cat that looks like a dog. It chases pens if you throw them and everything!!
I'm doing well and I got a sister that I will get along with really well for my companion, so that is good.
Sorry that I can't write more, but my time is up!!
Love you lots,
Masa

Mari Arrives in Latvia

We received this note from Mari's mission president today.

Your son or daughter has arrived safely. Here is a picture at the Riga Latvia airport with Sister Dance and I. From the airport we went for several hours of training, ate dinner, and then shared our feelings and testimonies about Christ. They went to bed early to catch up on lost sleep. Thank you for entrusting them to our care. They are a wonderful group of young men and women. They will receive their assignment on Thursday and you should receive an email from them on Monday. If you need anything or have any questions please email or call me.


Warmest Regards,

President Douglas Dance
Baltic Mission

Last Week in the Empty Sea

Well, it is a great feeling to know that I have almost survived my time here down south at the Empty Sea. Flight plans have arrived and I will be out of here on Monday.

February has been great so far...

On Thursday the 2nd we had some fun in the evening. One of the elders received 136 odd ties from his brother. It was pretty entertaining to look at them all.

On Friday Elder Burr, Lynch, and I went and taught Sister Keith aka "Nelly the investigator" through Lehi's Dream. We mostly focused on this life and it was amazing. She learned a lot and the spirit was constantly being felt throughout the lesson. We were all really happy about how well it went. Later on in class we got to call Brother Newman on Sister Priddis' phone to practice following up on contacts and such. It was a pretty funny sight. My cough has been getting better. I went to the doctor and he is letting me go to Latvia, I am just supposed to take an inhaler if I need it to keep my airway open. Sister Huntington left today. We knew that she was leaving, but didn't think it would be until tomorrow. She was notified at lunch that she'd be leaving for the airport in a half hour. Luckily she was all packed. She wrote us later on in the week. She is doing well and she is happy. As a zone we are all doing well. The sisters are all getting along great; there is definitely a different spirit in our residency hall now. This experience has shown me how important it is to be worthy to do missionary work.

On Friday the elders were quite "broken" as we call it. We are all getting cabin fever and the cabin fever of Friday night included them singing Spice Girls and then not remembering it two minutes later. Luckily I will always remember it for them.
Saturday during class we were all falling asleep so Sister P took us out into the cold to do some contacting. We'd switch off having two of us contact and then the other would translate into English. We had a lot of fun doing this and some of the translations were pretty ridiculous (in a good way though- just fixing sentences so that they'd be correct).
On Sunday I gained a testimony of bringing pillows to meetings. Fast Sundays are mission conferences in the MTC so you get to sit for two hours on the hard bleacher seats and then have more meetings to follow. Our district decided to bring our pillows to sit on. This kept us all awake while the MTC presidency and their wives spoke. The biggest thing that the Spirit taught me in that meeting was that I just need to relax and make sure that I am happy and then I'll be doing what is right. Testimony meeting today was really spectacular. All of my district ending up bearing our testimonies and the Spirit was very powerful. When we weren't in meetings we worked on our Epistle of the Latvians, also known as our MTC advice to future Latvian missionaries set up in chapters, verses, and even includes scriptural cross references. Elder Lynch is quite the master at Bible speak, it is a hilariously amazing epistle.

On Monday night we all wanted to shoot ourselves. We had a completely vacuous and dull common sense meeting about health and safety. This meeting lasted almost two hours. Just boil anything you eat for about 6 minutes and you will be fine. Luckily our last LGM made up for the awfulness of the health and safety meeting. The LGM was about finding people to teach. I enjoyed hearing everyone's comments and learning the importance of talking to everyone that we come in contact with and quickly testifying of the restoration because that is what sets us apart. Service was good today as well. I cleaned with the two other sisters in our zone (Hall from Farmington, UT and Kennach from OR). They are pretty quiet but we got a lot done (sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, etc.).

Tuesday the 8th was AMAΖΙΝG. In the morning we had Brother Snyder come in and teach us about the relationship between the Book of Mormon and the Bible. I learned so much. This lesson is how I thought all teaching in the MTC was going to be like. I will try to quickly sum it up. Both the Bible and the BOM contain the fullness of the gospel (check the BoM intro). The two were made for different purposes though. The Bible came after the church and the BoM came before the Restoration as it was to gather Israel and bring people to the truth. This is why we should use the BoM as missionaries to prove the truthfulness of the Bible. Moroni's intro, Ezra Taft Benson, DC 18:4, 1 Nephi 15:14 all tell about the same 3 purposes of the BoM. Matt 16:13-18 the rock is revelation. We may see but it is only in believing that we are saved.

Following Brother Snyder we had our lesson with Brother Vehawn, aka Vytas. He threw us a curve ball saying that his family didn't want him to be baptized. After a moment of befuddlement we abandoned the ship of our planned lesson and left only the parts that could apply to him and this trial, which were conveniently fasting and reading the scriptures. The lesson was great and you could feel the Holy Ghost testify as we were earnestly concerned for Vytas. We will all miss Brother Vehawn. We took some pictures with him and talked for a while after our lesson.

Yesterday (being Wednesday) I saw Chris Teuscher and Cade Cloward. Both are doing well although sick of the MTC. Japanese is really hard for Cade, but he says that he likes it. Elder Burr and I taught a great lesson in the TRC. We (by we I mean I) were really struggling with it earlier because I wasn't fully understanding all of the symbolism in Alma 32 on faith, the seed, and the tree it becomes. Luckily we got it all figured out in companionship study. The seed is a truth about God and we place it in our hearts, where we feel the Spirit and not in our heads, where knowledge is. We do the basics to grow our seed and it becomes the tree of our testimony. From this testimony (and remember that faith is action) we receive fruit- fruit which is eternal life. We taught this in our lesson and it was amazing. We asked great questions and were constantly testifying so the Spirit was there. We applied the lesson to them and showed them how they could gain testimonies of truths that they were unsure of.

It is the most wonderful adventure, a mission.

I love you all (and will be talking to some of you possibly soon). This church is the Church that Christ founded. God is our Heavenly Father and He loves us. He has prepared everything that we need to succeed in this life.

Love,
Sister Lindstrom

Week 7 in the MTC

So Friday I was feeling so ridiculously miserable that I stayed in bed. I then went to the doctor's because I was miserable. He was very nice and we chit-chatted and he thinks that I have reactive bronchiole disease or something like that on top of my virus. He let me suck oxygen with medicine in it to open up my airways and then he gave me a narcotic cough suppressant (yes my cough is that bad...they actually made me wear a mask in the doctor's office and they also took me in right away) and an Advair inhaler to help open up my breathing since I was wheezing when he listened to my lungs. I slept some more and then got to wait while Sister Huntington visited the doctor because she has the virus too. I finished a puzzle while there and met some very interesting people.
On Saturday I made it to class. I was falling asleep though so Sister Priddis took all of us (I wasn't the only one falling asleep, just the only one drugged) outside and we played I Spy. I spied an Elder with a Mexican sombrero. I'm not quite sure why he had it. Saturday night was an adventure. Poor Elder Burr had rebelling intestines....let's just say he went to the front office and got some medicine, yet still wasn't well enough to stay. I sent him home to bed. He's doing better now.
Sunday was ridiculously dramatic. The Armenian sisters in our zone have been having some issues with each other, mostly about one companionship being disobedient. Long story short the Branch president got involved and people were offended and PMSing. It has all blown over now though, but I sure thought that WWIII was about to erupt. I am so grateful that I do not have a companion here and that I have a district that may be small, but is extremely awesome. We all get along really well and everyone is just improving in all aspects in our district.
Oh yes! Another Sunday adventure.... After the Sunday devotional by Brother Swenson we stayed to watch the Joseph Smith movie. Suddenly all the elders in my zone were whispering and pointing. They were pointing at a sister who they nicknamed "Isabel the Harlot." So Isabel is a solo sister. She was sitting between her two elders (not normal) and was leaning into the not hideous one during the whole entire movie, flipping her hair and whispering sweet nothings into his ear as well as almost resting her rosy cheek upon his bone-y shoulder. All those behind this site were quite disturbed as was I. Isabel was getting more action that I have gotten on some second and third dates! Needless to say I grabbed her after the movie just to let her know that it was quite sketch looking from the back. She exploded in a whirlwind of hatred. She informed everyone in her defiant angry voice that she has a fainting problem and that she has given herself two black eyes and a concussion. She further informed me that she could have my branch president talk to her branch president who has talked to the MTC president and blah blah blah blah blah. I still don't know what that has to do with her whispering sweet nothings to an elder, but whatever. All the elders in my zone think I'm the bomb for calling her out. Yeah, eventful Sunday!
On Monday we practiced street contacting with Brother Newman. He is so intimidating! It was good to get some practice in though.
On Tuesday we taught Brother Vehawn, the Lithuanian teacher about the law of chastity. This went over really well. Our district is really starting to teach like a team and be more loose about things. Elder Duncan of the Seventy spoke to us about building bridges for our investigator to cross. We really need to know the people that we are dealing with and cater to their needs. We need to listen to others.
Yesterday, Ground Hog Day was lots of fun in class. We had two Baltic bound sisters learning Russian come and ask our teacher questions about the Baltics. We got to see pictures of concentration camps and old fortresses. Brother Newman also told us about the Russian influence there. You can find foods like borsch and the Russian Mafia is still alive and well in Latvia. He is convinced that they have a center right below the church in Riga. He said it looks like a clothing shop but that the clothes on the displays never changed in the two years he was in Latvia and that you always see men go out of limos and come back with bags from this shop. Sounds exciting!
I taught in the TRC by myself yesterday. It went so well. Most of the time we spent talking about the importance of baptism (which was only supposed to last 10 minutes, not 30-40). This means that a lot of it was impromptu and not prepared. Amelia, one of the sisters I teach said that she could really feel the spirit when I was trying to tell her how important it was for her to be baptized again (she is a pretend Lutheran investigator), that it gave her shivers.
I still have my cold. I'm up and about moving more though. I didn't take a nap yesterday during gym, so that was good. I have another appointment with the doctor on Friday. We're all praying that my cold will go away soon so I can use all my energy preparing to go to Latvia.

Lots of Love,
Sister Lindstrom

The language is going well. Latvian is actually Sanskrit based....Latvia has tons of amber and so there was a trade trail from there to India and then mix in the several hundred years of German rule and you have the language!