Week 18

20 June 2011

Hello from Down Under!
Okay, so I suppose I'm really not from 'Down Under' but it sounded like a good thing to say. This week was quite the eventful one, as usual.

On Monday we had an appointment scheduled with a lady that I had called earlier last week. It was like a wild goose chase finding her, she kept on changing where she wanted to meet. We eventually did meet her after running around for nearly 30 minutes and she didn't want to talk about God at all. She did invite us over for pancakes sometime though. Madara came down from her hometown of Saldus and we had lunch together. We split a pizza...a pickle pizza! They grated a giant pickle on to it, and yes, it was sort of good in a really odd way.
The highlight of Monday was definitely our bike gang. The youth have been down lately and so we organized a huge bike ride. We rented bikes and helped rent bikes for those that didn't have bikes. We had a great turnout! Rita's brother came for a little while and he had a tandem bicycle that he let us ride. Talk about companionship unity! Sister Ferrin cannot be trusted in the front...she almost ran us into several things. Next time I'll steer. So we were pretty much this giant bike gang with 10-12 people riding along (Elder Holdaway, Elder Lynch, Sister Ferrin, Sister Lindstrom, Sandijs, Inguss, Rita, Cintija, Madara, and Rihards). We went over the bridge and up through one of the parks and back down through center and then we followed the bike path. The bike path took us past the sea and through some pine trees and all the way to the end of town. We stopped at the giant Liepaja sign and took lots of pictures. We headed back up and Madara got a flat tire! It really wasn't her day (she also broke the light reflector off her rental bike and ran into a pole. She also almost got hit by a bus.) but she was a good sport and after going to a gas station, calling a ward member, we finally found a tire shop that filled it up for free. Cinitia joined our bike gang and took us to the lake. It was quite the ride! It was so nice to be bicycle riding.

Tuesday morning we had a good meeting with President S. and Olga. President S. offered her a priesthood blessing which she is going to think about getting. The best part of the day was most definitely Santa's meeting. We took Rihards with because we were planning on talking about the temple. We did not talk about the temple. We got there and we had Santa tell her conversion story so we could write it (it is something President Dance has asked us to do). This took about 40 minutes during which Rihards kept on trying to get Riksi, the dog, to be by him and not by us masas. Then the cat came. I sat and laughed the rest of the time at the phobia Rihards has for crocodiles, the cat. The cat's real name is Mixie, but she has a tendancy to attack people so Santa calls her crocodiles. She told Rihards the story of the other Santa getting attacked and so he was just paranoid, "I think the cat is out to get me." It was. Mixie is a smart cat, she can open doors. She kept on trying to open the door to get back in so Rihards just reached over and held it shut. Santa thought that women not having the priesthood was discrimination so we had to go over that and then the cat came in for the prayer. It was the longest prayer ever. Santa kept on stopping and watching the cat (or so I heard, I was closing my eyes the whole time). But the cat jumped up on the furniture by Rihards head and he was all nervous and then the cat came between Sister Ferrin and I. Santa had paused praying again and then out squeeks Sister Ferrin, "I'm scared." Then some frog croaked outside and I lost it and started laughing.

After our animal adventure we all headed back to the church to teach Oskars. We got there a little early and we couldn't start the meeting without Madara so Ieva told us that we were playing ping pong with her. It was pretty hilarious since she is still working on the whole hand-eye coordination thing. Rihards was so great, "My dearest Ieva, you've got to hit the ping pong ball with love." WHAP! "It is kind of like dancing." Oh geez!

Wednesday was a very long day. It started at about 2am. Masa Ferina was sick and her moaning and a groaning woke me up. She apparently had a wicked bad headache so I got up and we got her drugs and tea and a massage. We had the priviledge of waking up even earlier than normal to go to Zone Conference up in Riga. The bus ride up was quite uneventful, everyone else slept. The conference was amazing. We all had the opportunity to bear our testimonies. The Spirit was so strong and it was neat to hear from everyone. President Dance then told us the story of receiving the call to be a mission president and what would happen with President Boswell coming in July 1st. He also told us about how missions are ranked and how ours is a three (based on language, climate, distance from home, culture, number of baptisms, health care, etc.). He said this is one of the reasons that Elder Clayton was so astonished that we only had 5 missionaries who didn't grow up in the gospel and were converts. That apparently never happens so it sort of gives you an insight to how hard our mission is. He then proceeded to tell us about the seven things that he learned on his mission.

1. Weightloss! We all carry with us baggage. Forward and outward are the important directions in our life.
2. You seek what you find. Whatever you seek (happiness, goodness, badness) you find.
3. There are no boundaries on our capacity to grow and change. People can always change into something very different, don't ever judge them.
4. When we choose our path (our choice) we choose our destination (the consequence).
5. Obedience is the path that we have to travel. Obedience is a creative act, a creative experience. Obedience creates faith.
6. The hand of the Lord reaches further than we can ever visualize. We don't see the preparation that happened beforehand.
7. The best things happen on the way. Enjoy the journey, we are in the process of becoming.

These are some great things and I definitely agree with all of President Dance's insights. He will definitely be missed.

We had kebabs for lunch as well as interviews with President Dance for about five minutes. He told me something pretty neat about him sending sisters to Liepaja. He said that he has been worried about it because they really need priesthood holders down there but when he thought of the two sisters he was going to send down there he wasn't worried about it because he said he knows we know what we are doing and that we are confident enough to teach men and families. It was a really nice compliment from my mission president.
I ate lunch with Sister Hardy and Elder Lynch along with some other missionaries. Sister Hardy told us to never give up on people and then told us this amazing story about her brother who has lived in his car for many years and never went to college or anything and how, through a series of events, he ended up being found (he was lost to his family for a while) and then got baptized, married, and will be getting sealed soon! It was such a neat and inspiring story about how God really does prepare people. I feel so priveledged to help be a part of that here in Latvia.

On Thursday President S. went with us to visit Ruta, the new Relief Society president. She fed us all a yummy lunch of chicken and rice, tea, and strawberries and cream. We then headed off to Mara (aka Mara and the Janes). It was quite a miracle that we got an appointment with her. We were planning on dropping her since we'd been trying for a month to get a hold of her but I just decided to call her to invite her to the ward party on Friday. She answered the phone (miracle!) and then said, "Finally!! When can we meet?" So we went over there and went back and forth about what to teach her because we weren't really feeling like teaching what we had planned. We decided on the gospel of Jesus Christ and had a great lesson in which we invited her to be baptized and she accepted, at least sort of. She said she supposed that she could get baptized again if she needed to and that she wanted to see a baptism first. It was quite an exciting meeting!

We then caught a bus and went to President S.'s. He invited us over to Sarra's birthday party. She was turning three and they had invited a less active that they wanted us to fellowship. This would have worked out perfectly if everyone there didn't speak Russian except for us! It made it difficult, but I enjoyed listening to everyone jibber jabber away in Russian. President made the pizza and the giant torte that Sarra wanted. It indeed was a giant lemon torte. She was so excited to see it. The little girls loved the noise makers we brought and thought they were the funniest things ever.

Friday is was raining so naturally we got lost. We were trying to find Ausma, an active member. She reminds me of Claire in the fact that she has this old growly sounding voice. She is a hoot. She showed us all of her pictures, including ones of missionaries she knows and of Rihards from the ward. We at first thought that he was her grandson and then we figured out that he was just a nice boy and they are friends. She was so proud of him, "Rihards wrote me while he was on his mission in Utah." "You mean California?" "Yeah, in Utah." She is such a solid member, she has been a member for a long time and is one of the few who has church pictures up. I felt so bad for her though, she lives in a retirement home in a tiny room with like one or two bathrooms for the whole entire hall. It was probably about the size of my dorm in France. Bless her heart. She has a little dog that she likes to bribe with hot dogs to make dance. On the way back I got splashed by a truck! There was a giant puddle and it got me. I naturally screamed and started laughing as the three-year-old in me always does.

We had the special opportunity of going to Madara's High School Graduation. We also had Rihards, Inguss, Sandijs, Cintija, Rita, and President S. and his family there. It was pretty great seeing Rihards, Inguss, and Sandijs in their suits with flowers. They looked like they were competing for a girl they wanted to date or something. Flowers are a very important part of graduations here. I shall attempt to explain what happened. Madara goes to a music school in this awesome old building. We were in a gorgeous concert hall with chandeliers and seating like in theatres. They called the names one at a time and they came walking in their prom-esque outfits (but short dresses) while a little blurb was said about each graduate and pictures of them were shown. There weren't even twenty graduates (and only one boy!) so it wasn't long. There was then a back and forth exchange of speeches, advice, and singing. They had three opera singing girls sing songs. Scholarships were awarded. Flowers were given to the teachers by the students. The national anthem was sung. The graduates gave flowers to their parents. At the end they called every graduates name again and everyone that was there to support them stood up and got in a line to congratulate them and give them flowers (an odd number mind you, even numbers of flowers are for dead people). It was a really cool graduation and it meant the world to Madara that we were there.
We then all went to the church for a ward party. It was interesting to say the least and very last minute. No one told us what is was, we just knew that we were taking an airplane trip to somewhere. Sista F. and I got to be stewardesses and pass out cookies. We were thinking that it was going to be a Plan of Salvation activity (that the plane would crash and we'd die and then we'd go to the kingdoms and such). I especially thought this when I saw someone with angel wings. And a golden curly wig. With a halo. Sadly, it was not a plan of salvation activity. The man with the angel wings was the lei dude from church last Sunday. My favorite part of the activity was watching Elder Holdaway sit by him and keep a straight face as he raised his white-gloved hand and asked, "Our we going to crash? I'm terrified of crashing. Where is this plane going again?" Oh goodness. I. Love. People. Uldiss Frolavs (Cintija's dad) ended up showing pictures from his mysterious trip to Indonesia that he wouldn't tell anyone about. Let's just say we were glad we didn't have any of our investigators show up.

Saturday was a busy day. We had English class (without Baiba, our translator) but Santa came and she helped us pull Mihelijs after the lesson to talk about the Book of Mormon. He is Russian Orthodox but we want him to convert. :) We then cleaned the church with some of the members and some of our investigators and then headed off to pick up the Jacques at the bus station. We took them to their hotel and then to the Pastnieka maja (the postman's house) for dinner. It was very delicious. "Grandpa" Jacques was a sweetheart and paid for us and we all enjoyed trying each other's dishes. The Jacques said it was the best food they have had in Latvia, so I suppose we chose well! (And the best soup that Elder Jacques has had ever). I got won tons filled with shredded veggies, Sister Ferrin some fish, and Elder Jacques got some amazing chicken as well. It was good. We then walked them to the beach and dropped them off there and went back to work since our lunch time was over.

Sunday was a great meeting. Elder and Sister Jacques spoke in sacrament. Sister J. spoke about prayer and Elder J. spoke about things that we need to always be doing. The last one was sing really loud and so we all sang I am a child of God. Ieva (the one who is 5) was belting it out and made us all smile. Liga loves church! She enjoyed sacrament and then was basically stealing my scriptures from me in Sunday School so that she could read what we were reading next. She also took one of all the pamphlets that we had sitting out and now how a copy of the temple issue of the Ensign. We'll just say that she is pretty intersted in the church right about now. :D We got the trolls (Ieva and Olga) to stay for all three hours! We went with them to young womens and had a good lesson about well, us! It was on missionary work and it was a great lesson that the girls were glad that they stayed for.
We came home from church and I made some veggie lasagna. Lasagna is hard to make! I'm definitely going to need to practice that one; it turned out delicious though. We had a meeting with the elders about how to better help the branch and then we met with both Olga and Ieva and told them we knew that they still weren't obeying the Word of Wisdom and that we loved them. We then sent them home with homework to think about how we can help them and that was that!

Another week has flown by as has another transfer. I hit my six month mark this week as Elder Lynch reminded me and transfers are this week. We have almost hit the peak of summer- the sun was up today at 4:29 am and won't be going down until 10:22 pm. There are lots of Linden trees in Liepaja...I actually think it may be the city tree because they are everywhere!

Lots of Love,
Sister Lindstrom