Week 8

What is new in my world....
I feel like I'm understanding a lot more this transfer. I'm praying for the Lord's help to be courageous in talking to people and it is helping. I am finally starting to see buds on things and that is exciting. The weather is wild here though. This morning it was warm and sunny and now it is cold and wet. If the mornings are cloudy it tends to get sunny and vice versa. Mostly I think I'll just plan for rain, lol.

Monday we went out with the other sisters to Tex Mex and got some Mexican with a Latvian flair food. It was really good considering it is Latvian Mexican food. We also had a great conversation with this man from Sri Lanka. He is a professor here and has been living here for several years now. He had lots of questions about our church and activities since he is involved in running two seperate churches (of two seperate religions I might add). The Jakes weren't having their usual "Fry Day" so we went around the mall and checked out the different stores. I found a really cute tan beret-esque hat because you wear hats year round here- to keep your ears warm, to keep your head dry, to keep your hair from flying everywhere in the wind (it is quite windy lately), etc.

Tuesday's District Meeting focused on working with members. Following our meeting we went with all the elders in Imanta and filled partikas- food bags for needy people. Sister Sutterfield and I met with Anda and Vicente. Sister S. worked with Vicente on working on setting up his account to do geneology on the church site. I talked with Anda about the scriptures. We talked about where she was in 3 Nephi and then talked about how I like Ether 12. She sped read it all and then we spent some time disecting Ether 12:27. Anda had some great insights about how we need to continually rely on the Lord to make our weaknesses strengths, otherwise they become weaknesses again. We also talked about it relating to the Pride Cycle. Sister S. told them she was craving pickles (I'm not sure why)... They got out this GIANT bottle filled with pickles and gave us half a dozen or so. Ask and ye shall receive! Needless to say I felt goofy carrying around pickles while contacting.

Wednesday was a very rainy day. We met up with the Ward Mission Leader, Gatis and talked about our members. We told him how Martins no longer has a baptismal date and how he has a lot of concerns, such as if there are multiple gods, etc. Gatis joked that we do and that we should build on common ground. On the way back to Imanta I spoke with the cutest Russian lady. She was very interested in the gospel and wished that my Book of Mormon was in Russian and not Latvian. I got her phone number and passed it off to the Russian sisters. I pray that she will listen to their sweet message. Inga helped us with our lessons with Martins and Andris. Mariss, a ward member (male) also came and helped. They were both God sends. Martins brought his red haired, faux-hawked, very sassy, friend with. He wanted to cause a ruckus because he wanted to know what exactly we were doing to brain wash his friend to make him want to not smoke and drink. Inga was laying out the jokes and the truth. "Yeah, we are weird, but we aren't zombies. I understand, My friends thought the same thing. You are a good friend, but if he wants to change, let him change." And those sorts of things. Mariss was the spiritual rock. What was really neat for me was seeing the change in Mr. Grumpy red-head. He was not wanting to do anything except be rude at the beginning, but towards the end of the lesson I was able to testify of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and he listened. It was so neat to see that and to feel the Spirit touch him. Andris' lesson was fine. We read with him one of the Isaiah chapters in Alma. Good thing Sister Sutterfield is scripturally scholarly, otherwise we would have been toast. Inga did say something pretty funny to Andris though. She said, "You're not baptized so you won't be saved in the last day, ha ha!" I hope it made him think!

Thursday Sister Sutterfield taught me how to make twice baked stuffed potatoes. They are really good. We also had some not so goodness. One of the elders serving in Imanta, Russian speaking, was going home. He was a great missionary so we were sad to find out but so happy when we got a call from Sanita and Raitis. They were cancelling their appointment (boo!) because their daughter was sick (Latvians do NOT like visitors when they are sick. They are very phobic about that sort of thing.) and the doctor said not to have any visitors. BUT Sanita told us that Raitis loved the reading SO MUCH that he shared it with his mom. And wanted to with a friend but he had already given his copy of the Book of Mormon to his mom. How great is that?! We taught less-active Ieveta. The highlight was definitely a bird flying into the window during the lesson. There was this loud smack and then feathers stuck to the glass!!! Sister S. started to laugh...ahh. Missionary work. We had lots of time to contact today, but we saw mostly cats. We could have seen at least 30 or so in a 2 hour period. It was nuts. Even more nuts was the awesome girl Alisa that we met. She was waiting at a bus stop and had awesome style that reminded me of Kirstin/her friends. She had a lace skirt she made herself and a mustard yellow coat, an insanely cool umbrella, and two cameras. She was going to Center to a poetry reading with her friends. We started talking to her (in English) about what we do as missionaries and why we decided to serve missions, as well as what we believe. She had a lot of questions and said she didn't think she could know about God at such a young age (21). She was so interested in the convo that she was like, "That is my bus, but I'm going to miss it because I want to keep talking." Exciting!! We got her phone number and will be calling her soon. Thursday I also contacted a lady whose mother had just died...yikes! I force gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and told her it would help.

Friday was someone's birthday! I woke up and made crepes for Sister Sutterfield. We went to the church to watch Saturday Afternoon's session of conference with the elders (Russian and Latvian). We brought some bean dip that I made and put candles in and sung to her. We then went to Ineta Lidace (the less active with 3 girls) to help clean/share a message. The house was so clean though, there was nothing to do, so the girls wanted to play cafe with us and gave us muffins and milk. It was pretty cute (other than it all being in command form. "Sit here! This is your table! Give me the money now!" We went to Latvian language class where we sang and had Sister Sutterfield blow out the candles on her birthday cake that I made. I am pretty sure that Elder Taylors ate half of it by himself. I'm guessing that it was pretty good. :}

Lately we have been seeing lots of people selling pussy willow branches. In Latvia it is to remember Easter/Christ. They also have a tradition of spanking the children with it on Easter for their health.

Saturday the members got to watch conference. We went and helped to prepare for the lunch that was inbetween the sessions. We were also able to meet with Martins. Inga came and helped. We found out that Martins' concern is drinking. Inga told him he could quit and that our prayers would help and that we need to pray for him. We definitely are praying that he will quit, as well as that he will get a baptismal date again.

Sunday we also helped get the lunch ready for inbetween sesssions. I had a very hard time listening/understanding. Their mouths were moving and Latvian was coming out at a different speed and so I am just glad we get to listen to it in English. The two sessions that I have watched have been so uplifting and each talk has been an answer to a different prayer that I've had on my mission. The gospel is amazing! When we are searching for answers God does provide them. So, we were contacting on this street and this cute little kid was learning how to ride his bike. And fell. And kept on falling. And then ran straight into a pole with his shoulder. We felt so bad, especially since we walked by 4-5 times because we were contacting different people. It was so sad/funny. He was a trooper. We talked to a really nice Jehovah's Witness that had lots of questions for us. We talked for at least 20 minutes. We were also able to meet with Erika's mom. Her name is Aija. She actually lives really close to us. We are teaching her English/the gospel as well. The spirit was definitely there while we were teaching and I have hope for her. I could definitely see her getting baptized. She never has been because she thinks it is just the "popular" thing to do in the Catholic church. Favorite drunk of the week: This man called us cute little ducks and asked why cute Sister Sutterfield was not married.

Well, that is all the time I have.
Love you all, the church is true!
Bisous,
Soeur L