Week 28

On Monday we ate at Pastnieka Maja. I decided that it isn't very fun when you eat at your favorite restaurant all the time because then it gets boring. That was probably the highlight of the preparing part of Monday and then in the evening we were able to meet with some of the hooligans (now called the Brothers 3 after Sister Ferrin prayed a really funny prayer that involved the words, "Please bless the hooligans. Uhh..and by hooligans I mean really nice boys." Only Martins and his little brother Chris showed up. We taught them the Word of Wisdom (which did not go over well in retrospect).

On Tuesday I baked my first no-knead bread (recipe by the mighty Thor). Other than the fact that my cornmeal was a little too "generous" it turned out really well. We gobbled it all up for District Meeting with jam and cheese and all the fixings. We got jaked/boffed/had lots of people not show up for appointments this week. I really do appreciate considerate people who tell you when they are not going to be somewhere they said they were. Anywho we did get a chance to meet with the Brothers 3 (who had jaked us earlier in the day) and we taught them five out of the ten commandments. We taught investigator Santa S. the same and we had a fun time as always with member Santa D. in the evening. We talked about keeping the Sabbath Day holy, so now she knows for sure, no shopping on Sundays! She is such an obedient member. We love her.

Wednesday morning we met with members Annika and Rihards and got all the "dirt" on members. Annika has an incredible memory. She knows what street many of the members live on. We met with them to help us know about who has moved, been offended, etc. I had another brave cooking day...baked salmon! It turned out really well considering it was all being made up as I went along. We had a really nice lesson with Rita on Personal Revelation. We read a section in Preach My Gospel about it and then went to the scriptures. Sports was interesting. The elders were go to Riga on exchanges so it was just us sisters. Ward members Sintija, Rita, Sandijs (he is practically a member), Inguss, and Inguss' little brother Raivo were there. The brothers three showed up about a half an hour late (so not them...they LOVE sports) and so we played with them then. I scored three goals! I wanted to tell Martins that is what he gets for thinking the Word of Wisdom is dumb, but I kept that thought to myself. Sister Ferrin and Raivo were a hoot and a half to watch runnning around chasing each other with a football and later hockey sticks. Sintija (Cynthia) slammed the Relief Society door which somehow set off the fire alarm. Naturally the police had to come and instead of leaving everyone had to come inside and see what was happening. In the end we just let the alarm keep going (it was only the pre-alarm) and we re-taught Martins and taught Davis the Word of Wisdom since they wouldn't leave the church and we still had to wait there. Apparently we were very unclear because Martins thought that we couldn't eat meat. We didn't even talk about meat; I have no idea where he got that from. I also saw a nun on a bicycle with a backpack. And my soul delighted in the sight there of.

On Thursday we got jaked some more. Four times to be exact. And all of them members, how ironic. We were able to meet with our investigator Santa and her sister Alina. We taught the Word of Wisdom which she readily accepted (it is so easy when you don't like tea, coffee, alcohol, and smoking!) and then we had our branch activity that is supposed to be like family home evening but has turned into youth party night already. We played four men on a couch (any one think that I'm writing about BYU yet?). My team won both times. We gave the Frolavi family a tour (Eriks, Sintija, and their dad Uldis). It wasn't so good. Let's just say zombies, eating brains, and killing spiders were involved in our attempted tour. So Eriks went and got his hair cut all by himself. You should not let seven year olds do this. He came back with a "euro-hawk" with stars shaven in on one side and waves on the other. I thought that was pretty great that his dad didn't even know until he exclaimed, "Dad! Look at my star!" "Oh yeah, yeah, nice." (and pats Eriks' head) "No. Look!" (tilts head more) "Oh. That's cool."

We met with inactive Ena. Rita came along and helped. We had a great discussion about the Book of Mormon. Ena remembers a lot, but isn't willing to come to church while she knows she is breaking commandments, so for now we don't have much reason to visit her often since her situation won't be changing soon. Sad day. We got some Finnish ice cream since another member jaked us. Food highlight...corn on the cob. It had many memories of summer even though it was over-ripe and not very good. It was a final farewell to summer because fall is here. It has been raining about every other day and Saturday was our last warm day of the season. We finally got to meet with Olita, the lady who I called, jaked us, we contacted, jaked us again, etc. etc. She loved the church tour! She also wants to meet again. She has a good light about her.

Another great church tour happened on Saturday. We met Liene and her two daughters sitting outside the Catholic Cathedral and brought them to our church. We gave them a tour which their mother loved. They live about 10 miles outside of Liepaja but she wants to come to church next week. We had an eventful lesson with Santa S.'s mom. They came before English so Sandijs was helping us teach the Plan of Salvation. Then Santa D. came early and decided that she was going to sit in on the lesson. She is a character and made the lesson a lot lighter. Santa S.'s mom agreed with all that we taught, but when you are born pra-va-slav-nuh (Russian orthodox) you die that way because it is a sin to change religions. I'm still trying to figure out a nice way to tell people that if a religion isn't true then it is no sin to leave it because it isn't true. Any who, we had another large English class. In the evening we convinced the brothers 3 to watch Finding Faith in Christ. They watched it in English as opposed to Russian, so who knows how much they understood. It was weird watching that film in English! It has been a VERY long time. We finally got little Chris to pray! You just have to bribe him with cookies. He gave a great prayer though and is now to page twenty-four in the Book of Mormon. So there was a huge car rally here and it brought out the likes of Latvians that we have never seen (think the unpolitically correct term "white trash"). It was interesting to see so many different people. There were a lot of activities going around the city. Sandijs and Rita got to pretend to be in a rollover accident. A car company was teaching people how to get out of your car if it has rolled over. They also had "drunk googles" and were talking about drunk driving, so that was good to see. Eww. I did my service for the month. A cat or some other mammal decided to leave very yucky smelly gross fish diarrhea by our door and I cleaned it up. Yuck. I bought myself ice cream for that one. The hallway still reeks a little bit.

No one was at church on Sunday. But the Tolmacovi came, so that was a Sunday miracle. The brothers brought some hooligans and they were very bad and disrespectful during sacrament meeting. We don't know what is wrong with them. It was a nice meeting other than the noise and laser pointer. Elder Holdaway spoke as well as Rita. She is doing so good! Sister Ferrin and I taught Relief Society to three women (and then one left. And one was visiting from Riga). It was a good lesson though...from the talk about to do v. to be. I definitely recommend reading it again. Good stuff. We stopped by Lidija Ruble's house. She isn't coming to church anymore except for on Fast Sundays because she doesn't have enough money for transportation. Sad day. She really appreciated the visit and the lesson on the Plan of Salvation provided by Sister Ferrin. We almost had our meeting with Sandijs' mom so he can get baptized. Alas, he went to Santa S.'s birthday party instead. We actually saw them at the park on the tram ride home so we got off and said "hi."


And that is about all for the week, lots of people didn't show up and lots of making phone calls but that isn't too exciting to write about.

I know that we have a Savior, Jesus Christ. He has been through it all. Our Father in Heaven loves us and wants us to be happy. He has provided us the means to do so. May we always be worthy to live with him.

Sis. L.