Week 34

Last Monday was not my Monday. It was one of those "Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day" kind of days. I won't go into details. The evening was really great though! We went up to Lauma (an area of Liepaja named for the GIANT lingere factory there) and had an English/gospel lesson with one of our English students, Vera. Her 13-year-old daughter joined in. We followed the Spirit and decided to talk about The Book of Mormon instead of what we had planned and we had a great lesson in which the Spirit was very strong. They said that they were most definitely going to read The Book of Mormon. Vera even came to a session of General Conference on Saturday and said she really enjoyed it!

Tuesday was very intimidating walking into District Meeting. Before District Meeting Sister Wilson walked into a pole. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone about that, but it was way too funny not to. The three assistants (I don't know why we have three) to the mission president as well as one of the Latvian zone leaders were there along with our elders. That many people in suits is quite intimidating. That didn't scare away the Spirit though and I had probably one of the best District Meetings. We first talked about fear and Joshua becoming the prophet after Moses. We then talked about obedience and the power of words. I was almost crying during the roleplay. Elder Palmer is a hoot. I was trying to practice and he was pretending to be an old Russian bab. He is planning on writing a 7-novel fantasy series when he gets home if that gives you a glimpse into how creative and expressive he is. Apparently his companions get bedtime stories from his fantasy series and can make up their own characters to be in his books. Too bad he isn't a sister! We had a meeting to plan our Book of Mormon party and it should be a fun one. We are in charge of Jeopardy and brownies. We had a yummy greek salad for lunch and were able to visit again with Guna, another English student. By the end of the lesson our minds were officially blown...Guna's sister is Dace Beldava, a church member! We are going to have to figure out how to use this to our advantage.

On Wednesday I typed up the warm mission plan (right down my alley, I like making things cute on the computer!) and then we went out in the chilly wind to visit Zenta. She is progressing slowly. She still needs to come to church which will be a real struggle with her handicapped grandson, but at the end of the lesson she was asking us about baptism in our church. She still doesn't believe that only one church is right (God is one so it doesn't matter what church you go to according to most people here in Latvia). We then went and visited cute ole Ausma. She is a saint, still sharing the gospel with everyone and it was just a pleasure to be with her. We did some calling to invite members to the party on Thursday before going to visit Santa D. They still don't know what is wrong with her and she is getting a sonogram sooner than later. We taught Jana Gromenko, an inactive Russian member with help from Margarita (aka Rita). Jana has a great light and testimony and she enjoyed learning about the Restoration.

Thursday's grand event was the party. We finished translating Book of Mormon Jeopardy questions in the morning as well as made Book of Mormon brownies. We had Aunt Joyce's indian fry bread for lunch (which, when left over and reheated with jam tastes like a toaster strudel for those of you who were wondering how to make your own toaster strudels [those good frozen ones with the frosting packs]) and then had a lesson with Oskars as well as the Frolavi afterwards. I talked to Uldis on Skype (he is away in that random land with his new wife that he can't get a visa for) and he asked about the church and stuff. Thankfully the internet glitched so we could get to teaching the Eriks and Sintija. Eriks made it through the lesson with the bribe of playing Uno afterwards. He kicked our butts. He won and so we were playing for second place for about five minutes. He got bored so he took seven more cards and started playing again and won again. So yes, he won the same game twice. We then all headed to the church and Sintija and Sandijs sat in for Margarita's lesson about missionary work. The Book of Mormon party went really well. We had head ribbons for each team and we played Jeopardy. We all got the final question wrong so both teams lost. We then had a spiritual thought by Elder Schmidt, a teaching model by Margarita and I about how to share the gospel and then we had everyone write down their mission goals and practice.

Friday was really cold! We visited Vineta (inactive) who we got to pray at the end of the lesson...progress! We also went with the elders to declare. We did some shopping for Sunday dinner, had lunch and did church cleaning which was the best ever. Sarra and Ieva put on giant gloves and helped me clean the bathrooms. The bathrooms ended up cleaner than we were, which is always good [for the bathrooms]. Presidents sang some opera to us and we taught Santa S. and her sister Alina about prophets and then we went harvesting.

Saturday we got honked at twice on our run. I've never been honked at here, I guess we were looking good...or being chased by someone with a knife, who knows. We watched Saturday morning session with the branch and then had lunch with them. We did weekly planning and then took Margarita to help us teach inactive Maris Spagis. He seems nice and we will be meeting with him again. We went knocking with Rita and went to the Beldavi's in the evening. Raivo and Lauris prayed again...so cute. Elvis was there and had some great answers.

Sunday was a busy day. Sarra, Ieva, and Eriks helped us make four different kinds of soup while everyone watched conference. They were all a big hit. We then cleaned, made calls, made primary song signs and that was about it.
Times up!