Week 41

Choosing clothes is tiring. I found Sister Wilson Monday morning half dressed, with her towel on her head asleep on her bed. It was pretty funny that she fell asleep dressing. We were able to visit and have two family home evenings- one with the Tolmachovi and the other with the Frolavi family. We did both on the Title of Liberty and had the families make their own. The Tolmachovi were so cute; it was a whole family affair. Selina (6) helped to trace mom and dad's hands. Dad then grabbed the cat and his paw was traced. Mom and Dad then pinned down baby Eliza's hand so that Selina could trace it as well. It was pretty great. We were also able to rack Sister Marika's brain with language questions and share a spiritual thought on priorities. It is true that if we put God first, the rest will fall into place.

We had an interesting District Meeting topic on Tuesday: declaring with the sound of a trump. I did a practice with Elder Palmer. It is probably good I don't speak Russian. I was trying to guess what he was saying, which just led to both of us laughing a lot. You have to love miscommunication. We went to visit cute ole Ausma. Poor lady is sick but her testimony is as strong as ever. Sister Wilson introduced me to a family favorite- "Dad's Sandwiches" aka grilled cheese with ham and pickle. It is quite good. I convinced her to let us have it two days in a row. Normally we don't have sandwiches (normally we also don't have dinner, just lunch) because it costs so much to get all of the individual ingredients to make a good sandwich.

It was neat to see inactive Vineta pray at the end of our lesson about faith. It was a drastic improvement from her last prayer. I hope that she continues to pray so that God may bless her. I made my first homemade pumpkin pie on Wednesday! It isn't that hard. We also made an apple pie. They both tasted swell, but they don't hold a candle to mom's pies. Sintija helped us to teach Santa about prophets. It was so fun to see Sintija asking Santa questions to make sure that her new friend was understanding the gospel. She was a great member missionary! We are planning on softening Santa's parents hearts with cookies this week.

We were able to C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E Thanksgiving Wilson style (aka with twice as much food than I would have bought). The elders were very grateful that they were in a district with sisters. All in all we had two stuffed chickens, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, jello, pumpkin and apple pie, whipped cream, carrots, corn, and green beans, and rolls. I was in charge of the rolls like mom always is. They definitely weren't as nice looking as mom's but they tasted just as good. I also made some orange and cinnamon rolls. The elders were amazing and were in love with the rolls. They thought that would be an acceptable Thanksgiving feast. We had two hours of our preparation day time from Monday to use on Thursday for Thanksgiving so we ate all night long. Everyone in center was able to have a huge celebration and be with the Boswells and Elder and Sister Lawrence from the Europe East Area presidency. I was so pooped by the end of the night though; I didn't even care that the phone was lost and we were leaving to Riga the next morning.

Thankfully the elders had accidentally taken our phone so it was back in our possession 6:30 am. On the way up to Riga we got to hear book 2 (out of 7) from Elder Palmer's series that he is writing called Abraxis. I can't wait to read these books. Sister Wilson had her big ole blue eyes popping out of the sockets hearing the story. I like my Latvian orthodontist. He is young, nice, funny, and attractive..all the qualities my orthodontist at home is lacking. He actually left Sister Wilson speechless, which is a feat in itself. Anywho, he stuck clay in my mouth to get a mold of my teeth for new retainers. They cost 51 lats, which I don't think is too bad all things considered. I am having some elders take them back though because when I put them on Friday night they were cutting into my gums...oww. Anywho, after the attractive ortho we had pizza with the sisters and then I went with Sister Ferrin to teach some lessons. It was nice to be with her again, we are generally on the same page with most things. I am going to miss her. We got to teach a less active with the Russian sisters who are my favorite people. Sometimes I think I got called to the wrong language because I love all the Russian sisters so much and would kill to serve with them. Sister Ferrin and I have fun though. Other than the fact that every door that was mine to contact was Russian, we had a blast. We got to one floor in a building that smelled particularly cologne-ish. We knocked on the doors and out of one pops this 20-something year old charmer. He was just in awe that we were American and bummed that we couldn't go party with him. I told him we could talk about Jesus, but he said he was relaxing for the evening. He wants to go out for coffee this Monday, so hopefully the sisters in Riga have a fun time with good old Gatis. He even kissed our hands goodbye. I thought it was pretty hilarious. Sister Ferrin just started running down the stairs going, "This is why I don't want to go home and date! Ahh!" I cut Sister Sutterfield's hair Friday night and then we all didn't get any sleep (and not because we were talking) before...

ZONE CONFERENCE on Saturday! It was intense. Sister Lawrence used to be the seminary of all seminary teachers. Our brains all hurt after she told us about the House of Israel and its implications in missionary work and as people in general. She is a scriptorian to say the least. We learned some neat stuff. The take home point is that if you are from the House of Israel (which pretty much every person who joins the church is) you most likely promised in heaven to help gather scattered Israel. Gentiles also don't get adopted into tribes. Elder Lawrence told us 5 Keys to Success in missionary work and then I had lunch with him and his wife. Sister Boswell talked about what made the Sons of Mosiah successful (prayer, fasting, scripture study), and President Boswell touched us all as he talked about Christ and the fourth watch. God is never late. We are first watch prayers to a forth watch God, that is all. Elder Lawrence then gave us all a huge slap in the face. Our baptismal numbers are the worst for the Europe East Area so we got a good talking to about what we need to be doing to improve our baptismal rate. I'm just glad it wasn't Elder Holland because then we would have all most definitely been crying. The happy take away message is that I have lots of things to work on in my missionary work. Testimony meeting was really great...it is so weird that we are losing over half the masas in 3 weeks! We were able to take the bus home with the Liepaja RS. They were up in Imanta (my old stomping grounds) for a RS Conference. It was a great opportunity to mingle with the members and talk to them. I didn't head to the back of the bus with the other missionaries. I sat up by Skaidra and some other ladies and we talked about life and I asked them about Christmas traditions in Latvia and such. The biggest thing is advent- 4 Sundays before Christmas they have a wreath with 4 candles and you light a candle every Sunday.

Sunday was fun. I helped Sister Wilson in Primary because the kids were making cookies for the linger longer, which was a success, along with the delicious taco soup we made. Nothing too crazy happened other than the weather on Sunday. It was VERY windy and rainy. I thought I was going to be blown away walking to the Beldavi's home. We had a fun time making Nephi's bow with them (which broke when they tried to shoot arrows), but I think they got the take home message. Don't complain about your circumstances, go do something and ask God to help you!

I know that God will help us and that He is never late. He is always there guiding us gently. I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for you.

Love,
Sis L

(Make sure to take a look at the pictures below: including corn dogs made on 11/11/11; and Mari with Santa Dike and Oskars)