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