Week 16

Well hello again! It has been quite the week. This transfer is just flying by. I'm just planning on staying in Liepaja until Christmas-time because it flies by so quickly! Doubtful that will happen, but we can dream.

On Monday we went out with the elders (yes there are elders- Elder Holdaway and Lynch) and Santa and Sandis to Olive. It is this really neat restaurant with a floating roof garden and giant fun couches and very very slow service. The food was okay- liked the grill taste and Elder Holdaway's chips (aka fries, but we have Elder Lynch from Scotland) were delicious. We took Santa out because she is leaving for Riga and will be going to the Imanta Branch for the summer. The funniest thing was Sandis eating the sour cream he got to go with his potato pancakes whilst saying, "This tastes weird", shuddering, but still eating it. Latvians love their sour cream. On anything. We also did some shopping. Sister Ferrin found a little red dress for Mission Conference and I found a pretty epic dress right out of the fifties that is most definitely coming home with me. I found a jacket that I am really excited about. I probably won't get to wear it on my mission, but it is to make up for the coat that I never got in France that I am still dreaming about.

Speaking of France on Tuesday I called France. It was awful. I started speaking Latvian to the poor French woman. Elder Lynch laughed. I almost cried. Luckily, I can still understand French perfectly and the woman understood my Fratvian and told me how to get to the church so that some Branch members from Liepaja who are working in France can go to church there. I am so grateful for Elder Lynch and his faith. He always just tells me, "Don't worry about your French masa. God sent you here foreign speaking and he will bless you to be able to speak French perfectly when you get home." If only I had this kid's faith! He is working miracles and doing so well here. Santa, the recent convert said that she always knew what he was saying was true by the Spirit that he brought and how he would testify. I am so blessed for my MTC group- they are angels in suits and I am so glad that I came out with such fine young people. To continue on my Elder Lynch epicness, he had a miracle on Tuesday. One of his investigators is going to quit smoking. He traded his Bible for a lighter (Bibles are quite expensive here). He held them both up in the lesson and said, "Which is more important to you? Which would you rather have?" Martins picked the Bible!

On Wednesday we had a miracle of our own. We went to Ena's home and couldn't find her and her phone was off. We decided to check by the park just in case she was there and we ran into her and her daughter walking home from the store. We were able to teach both of them on a giant park bench with all of our legs swinging as we talked about how to be happy. Ena's prayer at the end was really good- she wants to come back to church. I tried making Dad's pizza- another successful Thor creation! Sadly yeast and Sister Ferrin don't quite mix so I won't be making pizza anytime soon.

On Wednesday we also taught Olga and Leva who we got from the elders. Olga is 16 and has some definite potential and Leva is well, 13. They are both terribly giggly and have a horrible addiction to smoking. They do want to quit though, so it should be a fun adventure with the two of them! We also taught Cynthia and her brother Erik. Erik is the little twirp who locked Sister Sutterfield and I in the library in Imanta. He tried the other week with Ieva to take me to prison, and my elders with shiny shoes had to save me from those jungle monsters. We had a fun object lesson about happiness that Erik loved a lot. They are two great members and I didn't get locked in prison again!

We did get kidnapped in a different sort of way while out knocking in apartment buildings. This "99.99%" atheist woman let us in and talked our ears off for 45 minutes. She even said she got us in "prison" and was talking our ear off and wasn't letting us talk even though she saw we were trying. He he. She was really nice though and actually fairly believing and smart. She just knows that she'd have to change if she believed in God more concretely, so she doesn't.

On Thursday we saw the first fruit of my calling labors. We met with Sanda. She was contacted by missionaries several years ago and brought her cute little runny nosed, bubble gum chewing 4-year-old Dennis to the meeting. She was fairly interested and asked a lot of questions about prophets. She travels a lot for her job though, so teaching her would be very difficult. Rihards, the 26-year-old first counselor helped us with a member lesson with Nodezda. She is Russian and we don't speak Russian. She understands Latvian but often answers more complicated spiritual things in Russian so he translated for us. It was a good meeting.

On Friday I went running barefoot on the beach again and played tag with the waves and let them try to chase me. I love Liepaja. The wind means that we have an excuse not to do our hair and it is cooler because the wind is nearly always blowing. It also gives us the chance to practice our Marilyn Monroe skills. We took Madara out contacting and had several miracles. The first was that a lady let us in and was quite interested and receptive. We are going back to teach her! She is in a hard spot in her life- sick parents, etc. so it is a good time for the gospel. We were continuing contacting in this 9-story apartment building (always start at the top!) when Leva and Olga called saying they wanted to smoke so they wanted to go to the church so they wouldn't. We left the dome with the unbreakable code (it was a miracle the door was open and we just walked right in) and went to buy them grapefruit juice (supposedly makes smoking super nasty and not desireable). At the store there was lo and behold MAGNUM ICE CREAM BARS! For those of you who haven't experienced these, they are a little taste of heaven on a stick. And a little heart attack, but very good. We haven't seen them in Latvia until now. Sister Sutterfield was rejoicing when we called her and told her; they are her favorite. So we went and taught the girls a spiritual thought. They behaved. No giggling. It was a miracle (possibly because we kicked Ieva out of the last lesson for being too giggly and not serious).

I have a confession. I'm in love. The neighbor kid to the church is so stinking cute. He is this little fat kid with glasses and his big pinch-able cheeks. He was also trying to climb over his fence and got stuck. And starting yelling and flapping his arms so it looked like he was swimming in the air. His police dog came and tried to scare him off the fence. I burst out laughing. It was quite the youTube hit quality adventure. He did finally get off the fence and then came over to us doing tricks and jumping and shook his head and went, "bbbbbbbbb!" with his jowels shaking. It was really the funniest thing I've seen in my life. I feel really bad that I was laughing, but things like that just don't happen in real life. I still snicker about it every time I think of Maxims stuck on his fence.

Our English class on Saturday went really well. We had the Russian dentist lady, our 2 way to cute to be in their 30s Russians, and Baiba- our only serious Latvian speaker who translates when the younger Russians ask questions in Russian. We decided to go over the Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet in Russian with them and it went over really well. Sure do wish I knew some Russian! We met with a less active family who just had a cute baby girl, Eliza. They are so nice and their six-year-old girl is a hoot. They stayed for some of the Latvian District Conference. It was really neat, Elder Mills got the buildings wired so we saw it broadcast from Imanta live! Elder Lawrence and Clayton were there as well and Elder Senkans and President Dance (with respective wives). They held a 2-hour Q&A session for the members. They could ask any question they wanted and the panel answered. It was really neat for them to have that. We had an older woman we met on the street come and like it, which was a miracle!

Leva and Olga (or oye! as we call them...previously Moye! until we split them off from Martins [the one who now has a Bible]) called and wanted a spiritual thought so we headed over to the church. We were in the midst of starting said very impromptu spiritual thought when the fire alarm went off. Now you see, we had fire safety for this building but didn't think president was serious about the noisy message in three languages "Uzmainibu Uzmainibu! There is an emer-g-ncy. Please exit this building. a;skldfjawoith (that was the Russian)" We learned how to turn said alarm off but it did not work. About 30 minutes later a police man came. By this time our investigators had left and we were just sitting talking and swatting at mosquitoes. Elder Lynch was fascinated that he had a gun. He couldn't get the alarm off either. So then we waited for another man to come and didn't leave until 9:30 from the church which had the speakers making an odd white sound and some of the rooms not smelling right. Sister Ferrin and I didn't sleep well at all for fear of the building burning down, but we couldn't do anything because the man that stopped the alarm said it was fine and the branch presidency was off in Riga at the District Conference.

On Sunday we got to the church. It didn't burn down. But the missionaries were apparently in charge of getting the branch to Riga. And the bus wasn't coming to the church. And neither were all the church members. Luckily the church is true and we found the bus and what stops we were supposed to pick people up at so we all got there. The most eventful part of the trip was the bathroom break. In the woods. Nevermind stopping at a city. 3/4 of the bus got off. Boys to the right and girls to the left. Seriously, we were just all in shock. Oye! were stinkers and went and smoked a cigarette during the potty break.

The conference was great. Same people as Saturday session. They all bore their testimonies and just talked to the church members here. They spoke often of being grateful, loving your country, counting your blessings, and improving yourself.
We went back with Sister Sutterfield and Wilson and had a chicken casserole (so not for summer heat) and then went off on mini-splits and went out working. Sister Wilson and I talked to some really good people. My favorite was this nice college-age kid who believes in yoga and he was just good to talk to though didn't want to meet with missionaries. We also met a super nice Russian lady who gave us her phone number.

Girls. They were so giggly. I felt like I was at a 13-year-old slumber party and it was warm, so I am still suffering from sleep deprivation.

Luckily MISSION CONFERENCE on Monday made up for it! It was so amazing. The whole entire mission was in the Imanta church together with the Dances, Lawrences, and Claytons. We took pictures with them and then were fed a spiritual feast. They all bore their short testimonies and then Elder Clayton held a Q&A session with us. He talked about getting along with companions, spiritual v. logical thinking, the relationship between faith and agency (Elder Lynch's question), forgiveness, and being a disciple of Jesus Christ. It was all really good and quite interesting to see how many of the scriptures that he used were also used in Preach My Gospel (thanks hand dandy multi-colored scripture marking). I especially like when Elder Clayton told us that it is just the beginning here. He told us that there is harvesting going on, but that we are also planting and sewing for later on. He told us that we are laying a foundation and that it will be great even though it is hard to take the long view. He also told us about the new stake in Moscow that was just formed. The church is growing here!

The biggest compliment was Sister Lawrence came up to Sister Ferrin and I (who were sitting in the front) after the meeting and told us that we had beautiful white smiles and "should be on a Colgate commercial." She also inquired as to if we used those whitening strips.

The senior couples put on a great lunch- chicken salad in croissants with brownies and ice cream. We got to stay until around 3pm and talk and socialize with missionaries from the mission. It was good to see all these faces that I may or may not see again. All the Russian elders are so tall! It is kind of fun to see the different personalities and body types that go with the certain speaking languages. Shorter Latvians, bigger Russians, nerdy Estonians, etc. etc.

The ride home was fun. We went to center with some of the Lithuanian elders and got to talk to them. One kid, Elder Carroll, was actually in a past New Era that we found in our apartment. I only teased him once about it, don't worry. We went into Stockmanns (a store with food from America) and got some bread and yogurt and then talked instead of sleeping on the way home. It was fun to learn more about the elders. Elder Holdaway's family is really into ultra-marathoning. He's done a ton of races and normally runs barefoot. Elder Lynch told us more about his family and it was just good to talk. We crashed once we got home though. It is getting harder to sleep though because it is brighter and warmer. Wish us luck!

Love you all,
Sister Lindstrom