Week 7

Mari's Missionary District

Shalom!

On Monday evening we received transfer calls. Sister Sutterfield and I are still together in Imanta. Elder Adams is staying but Elder Mills has been replaced by Elder Taylor. Sister S. does not like him, so it should be fun!! We also went to this amazingly fun tea house on Monday that Kirstin would like. It is basically like a greenhouse- all glass and round. They have pillows up the twirly stairs that you can sit on, sip your tea, and people watch.

On Tuesday we celebrated Sister Sutterfield's half-way mark. We made "anthill cake." This consists of several boxes of crushed cookies and sweetened condensed milk. It is really good, but isn't something that you should be eating every day by any means. District Meeting was pretty funny today. It took us a good half hour to settle down and get serious and then by the end we were too serious. District Leader Adams said, "I'm in a room full of perfectionists and they are all tying their nooses under the table." That is one of the most witty comments I have ever heard. I have a feeling we will all be fake-tying nooses for a long time. I tried buckwheat today for the first time. It was...interesting. I'm still not sure if I like it or not. We went and taught Anda and Vicente. We ended up showing them some Mormon Messages. The spirit was very strong, but Anda was kind of trying to deny it. She has been going through a difficult spell lately. It's definitely a good thing that we are required to visit recently-baptized members weekly for a year after their baptism. After Anda's we went "harvesting" in some apartment buildings. We knocked into a creepy Russian man who ended up following us out of the apartment building. We most definitely ran away. I've never been chased by a Russian before. Speaking of Russians, the people here can be prejudiced. A lot of the Latvians hate Russians and think they are the cause of all of their problems. Bless their hearts!

On Wednesday Sister Sutterfield woke up sick. We stayed in most of the day except for the evening when we had two lessons. Our first lesson was with Martins. We taught him about tithing using candy. It went really well. He stayed after and talked to us and Maija (the member we had helping) until Andris came. With Andris we just read with him from where he is in the Book of Mormon. We are trying to light the fire back in him to want to be baptized.

On Thursday we went to visit less active Janina (who has come to church a lot the past while). She noticed Sister Sutterfield's cold and made her take some vitamins, drink lots of tea, and stick some ointment up her nose....while we were having tea. I made some wicked good chicken noodle soup. It was mostly good because we bought animal shaped noodles for it. I also made some granola during the day (since we were inside again). I think I have your Moab granola recipe down dad! It tastes really good with dark brown sugar. We went to help Lena Blum, the RS president with a going away party for Zane. She will be serving in Ukraine. We got to stay for dinner and had essentially potstickers. Some had cherries in them and others had potatoes and mushrooms. They were really good. It was funny because it was a Relief Society activity but they invited the Elders and Maris who had just got done teaching a lesson at the church. I hope they enjoyed their first RS activity!

On Friday I finished reading the Book of Mormon in Latvian! Woot! I learned how much the Book of Mormon focuses on the missionary purpose (faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end) and in the order that they appear. I also noticed how much it talks about the heart...the gospel truly is something that we know in our hearts. I made some amazing curry corn chowder with rice, corn, potatoes, celery, carrots, and curry. It is definitely one of my new favorites. Martins texted us and told us he was "sick" and couldn't make it to his lesson. What he didn't know is that Maija called and told us that Martins had been texted her with lots of questions and doubts and wanted to meet with her and talk about it. I didn't do anything for April fools. They call it Aprilapril here.

On Saturday Sister Sutterfield started to get more on the mend. I was in charge of the district meeting lesson. It was about revelation through church attendance and it went really well. I learned a lot about how it is the jump starter to people progressing and feeling the spirit in a lot of different ways. We taught English class which went well. We told our class about prophets and conference and invited them to come listen to it in Latvian next week.

Sunday was FREEZING at church. They turned off the heat and it was just cold. Right before sacrament meeting Grandma Senkante (her son is a 70) grabbed my arms and starting pumping them back and forth and she was telling me to do that to get warm. It was just hilarious. We didn't have any investigators and church, but we were able to meet with Martins. He came an hour late. Turns out that his friends are not a good influence. He had LOADS of questions and concerns so as of now he doesn't have a baptismal date. Maija did most of the talking. I did get to testify about Joseph Smith and praying to know. It was really neat because it was the first time in Latvian that I really felt the Spirit strongly while I was testifying. He still wants to meet with us and he is going to read and pray, so that is good. We are hoping that we can get his concerns resolved. He loves his friends from the church and is going to family home evening with them today.

Love you,
Sister Lindstrom



Sister Sutterfield and her 'Halfway' Anthill Cake