Week 26

Hello Hello from Liepaja (lee-uh-pie-juh). I was just thinking how silly you must think some things are here because you don't know how they are pronounced, like Santa is not like Santa Clause but with a soft a.

I want to explain more about name days. Here in Latvia they have name days. Different names are celebrated every day. If it is your name day it is like a birthday party! Everyone comes to you and you have cake and they can bring presents and it is just a lot of fun. They have lots of memorial holidays. They will often get off work for these and it is required by law to put up a Latvian flag on every building on these days.

On Monday we decided to eat at the restaurant in Hotel Liva with Rihards. We got this amazing cheese bread. It was this gooey crazy wad of toasted bread strips with cheese melted all over. It was much better than the main course which sort of reminded me of KFC. I made Sister Hectle's blueberry dessert with fresh blueberries and we were able to take some of it over to family home evening with the Tolmacovi. With the Tolmacovi we went over the Restoration. The spirit was really great by the end of the lesson. We did some tracting/knocking/harvesting afterwards and there wasn't really anything noteworthy there.

Tuesday was filled with random downpours. District Meeting was filled with tangents. I feel really bad. We had new Elder Schmidt from Canada and we just weren't behaving ourselves too well because things were just too silly. We were very wet by the end of the day. In the evening I had on my big trench coat with hood as I walked onto the tram with its fogged up windows. I felt like a demeantor looking for people's souls. Sadly the only soul that we found last night was a rather old man in a speedo. We did not accept his invitation to come in.

On Wednesday we had a wonderful zone conference in Riga. We talked about the new handbook and some of the chapters within. Quote worthy quotes "There is no church in heaven." (think about that one!...it is all family run) and that things should be "home centered, church supported." Also Elder Burr (who has about a zillion baptismal dates in Imanta), "I'm turning Imanta into Argentina." Odd to think that we have been in Latvia for six months now! The Assistants helped President Boswell introduce our new focus as missionaries for the next little while. Finding the lost sheep! We had a great discussion about Alma 17. We have a goal to get in contact with every church member by October 23. Why? To get wards, stakes, and then a temple. Also, member work is very effective in the Baltics and we spend very little time on it considering how many baptisms it yields.

Baptisms in the Baltics since 2009
14% found it themselves/came on their own
20% found harvesting (knocking doors)
23% contacting
17% from English class
35% from referrals

The Zone leaders talked to us about internalizing goals and making them SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound) goals. I'm pretty pumped. President Boswell and I are on the same page. We like trying to create as many smiles as possible and think that less active work is important.

After Zone conference we went with the other sisters and got muffins. Poor Madara is pretty homesick. The bus ride home was enjoyable, we had an entertaining conversation with the elders.

On Thursday I found out that beef is nasty when it goes bad. It turned all gray. Yuck! We didn't eat it. Planning was hilarious. Sister Ferrin was tired, so she was in a horizontal position on the couch, not really wanting to do anything, but being a good sport and planning anyway. I ask her, "So what do you want to teach Santa?" "Celibacy." "What? Sister Ferrin? Sister Ferrrriiiinnnn...." She was out cold. We had an evening jam packed with member lessons. We got to talk to Rita about her goals. I am so excited for her! She is twenty two and has decided to go back and finish high school. Look out class of 2014! She also kind of sort of wants to serve a mission. It is great to see the gospel changing her life. We taught Oskars about tithing, he is a trooper as always. Poor Santa was feeling under the weather so she made us chamomile tea and we had cookies. She made us drink two cups and we had a really thought provoking lesson with her about the atonement.

Friday was filled with lots of cooking and working on the less active/lost sheep project.