Week 33

Monday we went scarf hunting and were quite successful. You have to love second-hand stores. Sister Wilson found this really awfully epic ugly sweater from Humana for a lat. She was beaming all day. It is good that the little things make her happy. We did emails and shopping and the rest of our day was consumed by moving the elders to a different apartment. It took us six hours. We did it all using the tram (and they didn't call any members to help...silly elders). It was quite entertaining though...mattresses, microwaves, weight sets, ironing boads, chairs, coat racks...all on the tram. We got A LOT of looks. The elders are now moved in to the top floor (no elevator naturally) of a very nice building near the Rock Cafe.

Jacob 5! Elder Schmidt said something profound in District Meeting today.. we are the trench diggers and God brings the water. I really liked that. We had Sister Wilson style haystacks for lunch. These haystacks included (but were not limited to) raw pepper, green onion, olives, carrots, pineapple as well as a chicken sauce and the rice. It was different but not bad. We bonded over our love of flying saucers (hot dogs sliced in half with mashed potatoes and cheese on top). You should try it if you haven't. The trolls (Ieva and Olga) called to set up a meeting and then didn't show up. They haven't been to church in a long time. I was working on the visiting teaching list and Sister Wilson decided to press the red button on the power cord. This naturally turned the computer off and I hadn't saved what I was working on, of course. It was pretty funny. "I thought the button was broken and didn't go to anything!" Oh dear. In other happy news we had a "smarter man" (our landlord's words, not mine) come and fix our washing machine. I am so grateful for working washing machines!

Wednesday we had a good meeting with Zenta. We invited her to baptism. She wants to know everything first but she has the desire and we look forward to taking her step by step closer to Christ. We also had a meeting with Maija, this cute lady that we called from a potential investigator sheet that was who knows how old. She seems like she has a sincere desire as well to learn. We had a nice little park bench meeting in the sunshine before the rain came later in the day. We had a lesson with Rita and Sandijs about the Holy Ghost. It then turned into appropriate media. Sister Lindstrom says you cannot watch Saw. It is not a Moses commandment, but a Sister Lindstrom one. You should all take note of my addendum to the commandments. We met with Santa. She is doing quite a bit better.

Last night we got a present in Liepaja...a Russian elder. We therefore played basketball with the elders in the morning so that they could bring me my package (thank you by the way! It is fun to have bright colors and the new tights. I was most excited for the toothbrush head, lol. The shoes will hopefully work, I tried wearing them once and they killed my feet. I haven't tried the lamp yet because we don't know if it needs a converter or not...it didn't have the voltage thing listed on it. Another tangent...I sent Sister Layton a package today, as well as kirstin). We all played basketball terribly. We blamed it on the dark. The sun is now coming up at 7:30. It is going to be a battle getting up at 6:30 in the winter. I already don't enjoy trying to start my day when the sun hasn't even come out to play. Good thing I won't be in Latvia forever! Did some more calling today and had a visit with Viktorija (Santa's friend). President helped with the lesson since Russian is her native language. This helped so much. She was SO close to taking a Book of Mormon. She did agree to meet again so we are hoping we will be able to help her see that the restored gospel is true. We made calzones again today. They were even bigger than last time...yikes! Neither of us could finish them. We visited inactive Velta. She was much happier today. We decided to use Sister Wilson's mad singing skills to our advantage and sang a hymn. We happened to choose her favorite hymn so she sang along. You gotta love the Spirit. :) We tried to drop by less-active Lidija's. She wouldn't let us in. She thinks I got her sick and didn't appreciate that we brought President last week. Oops. We went contacting and knocking today as well...no exciting adventures from that.

Friday we went and dropped off some banana bread to Nadezda. Poor lady is taking care of her ailing mom and is sick. I also bought 5 tram passes...I am such a nice missionary. Thankfully everyone (missionaries) paid me back. It was a beautiful autumn day, perfect for contacting. We taked to a really nice girl (by we I mean Sister Wilson and I stood at the side) who asked why I wasn't talking. Sister Wilson said that I could speak, and even better than her. "Oh, so you are letting her practice. How nice of you." Lol. I enjoyed that. We also ran into eternal investigator Aivars Fishmisters. He is my favorite. He was so raised in the communist times and thinks that the church heirarchy is corrupt. He is such a fun jokster. He decided we should embezzle church property and go to Cyprus. His mom died and you can see his heart softening a little bit. He just needs a testimony about church leaders and prophets! Rita helped us by translating in a meeting with less-active Tatiana. She is doing well but can recognize that something is missing in her life (THE GOSPEL!). We made soup, fixed my skirt (the one you made was too long mom...we hemmed it about 3 inches).

Our neighbors have a great sound system. They like to play good music sometimes, but mostly awful music. They also like to play it at our bedtime. Sister Wilson was ready to kill someone. Bless her heart. I didn't think it was THAT bad, but it didn't keep me from sleeping.

Saturday we were able to watch some of the Relief Society broadcast, go contacting, teach English, clean. The highlight of the day was probably when Sister Wilson got scared to death by this little dog when we were out harvesting. There were also a lot of scary old looking ladies that we knocked into.

Sunday was a great testimony meeting. All the District Presidency came and all bore their testimonies. Elder Palmer made up a Latvian testimony on the fly. It was so good and the branch LOVED it. We were both in primary for third hour. We went with the elders to visit Oskars in the hospital. He is looking so good (kidney stone treatments). The elders forgot bread for the sacrament so we used a mint...it was an interesting sacrament experience. I didn't know you could use pretty much whatever. I'm thinking cookies and milk would be awesome, but that is just me. We enjoyed hearing Queen "Bohemian Rhapsody" (yes I did sing along) on the way there and country music in the micrins on the way back. We met up with the Boswells at the church and had soup and cornbread with them to break our fast. It was a lot of fun; I love President Boswell's stories. They stopped by on their drive up from Lithuania.

The church is true.
Love you all,
Sister Lindstrom