Week 54

We had a very busy week, with 13 lessons with a member accompanying us. That is insanely good for all y'all who haven't recently been on a mission. Sadly, we only had one investigator at church.

On Monday I found the most divine chocolate mousse. It was like being back in France...yummm. It reminded me of that awful awful French book that was a torture to read by Proust. He has a "petite madeline" moment where he has a bite of this cookie and it takes him back to his glorious childhood. Anywho, we also did some missionary work. We were able to meet with Jana (LA) who we are trying to get active. We had a nice lesson, though it would help if we spoke Russian. Ne gavaru pa russki! We had the most hilarious 10 commandment lesson that I have ever witnessed with the Beldavi (M). We were talking about how you don't use the Lord's name in vain (people often say "Ak Dievs!" here). I likened it unto Inguss' name. Inguss wouldn't like it if we hollered his name, "Ak Inguss!" every time something bad happened. Then proceeded "Ak Inguss (giggle)!" "Ak Raivo!" "Ak Lauris!" "Ak Elvis" "Ak Filips [the bird]!" and so on and so forth. It was pretty great, especially with mom and brothers tearing into others on certain commandments. We were warmly invited to come back next Monday and talk about not using all of our time on the computer.

Sister Clark likes gingerbread so we decided to try making a gingerbread log (aka artery clogger of goodness- nesquick, sweetened condensed milk, butter, smashed gingerbread cookies). In District Meeting we talked about testimonies and how they are important. I like in True to the Faith where it states so simply what our testimonies should be. Ieva gave us coloring homework (how did she know I was stressed?!) and we made some delicious bbq chicken pizza. I don't have a talent for inventing BBQ sauce just if y'all were wondering. I do have a talent for poetry slamming. Sister Clark, having gone to that awful land of BYU would poetry slam hymns with her roommates for fun. It is quite an enjoyable missionary activity. Missions make you so weird. Presidents came and helped us to teach Janis and Kristina (I) about the importance of following commandments. Hopefully it helps because we shouldn't procrastinate the day of our repentance!

Kristina helped us teach Oskars about how to teach Wednesday night. Kristina schooled us...in all of our planning we forget to plan to teach about the Holy Ghost! It was a good reminder that he is the most important part. We had a nice lesson with Alesja (LA) about baptism and confirmation. She committed to come to church but then she ended up going to Riga on Sunday. After English class we invited them all to stay and watch the Restoration film. Only a few did, but one of them, Liga, was visibly touched by the film and we were able to meet with her on Thursday.

Rihards helped us teach Liga the restoration. Liga actually has had contact from missionaries and had a Russian copy of the Book of Mormon. We talked to her more about the Book of Mormon and she said she was excited and wanted to read it this time. She prayed very sincerely at the end to know if the Book of Mormon was true and if Joseph Smith was a prophet from God. Elder Adams was down from Riga for exchanges and participated in a Branch Missionary meeting. By the end we all had mustaches drawn on our fingers, it was pretty funny. Janis and Kristina (I) now know the 10 commandments and are going to "try" to live them. We split the trolls up and taught them at the same time in different rooms so they couldn't bother each other (yay for splits!) and it worked really well. Ieva and I talked more about Alma 34. It is a good chapter. Read it.

Madara hung out with us basically all Friday. We taught Rita (I) English. Well mostly we made Madara and Rita practice speaking to each other and taught her the Plan of Salvation in less than 10 minutes! We ate some soup together and then we taught Vaira. She brought us molding apples (yum!...I gave them to a bum). With Vaira, Sister Clark and I were both very impressed to teach her the Plan of Salvation. She has LOTS of deep questions. I didn't even know where to start. Cute Tamara (I) (a Russian) from English brought us pink tulips and chocolate. Who needs a boyfriend when you teach English?! Tamara just has a good light to her and accepted the Restoration. She is just busy so we will see if we can get this to become a priority. With Santa (RC) we went over Alma 42 and talked a lot about how God shapes us through trials and that he doesn't want to have to punish us all the time and stuff- the whole mercy/justice thing can be confusing for her.

On Saturday when we got to the church to prepare for English the elders had a woman there and said, "Hey, teach her about the Book of Mormon." Well, okay. It was a really spirit-filled impromptu lesson. Lidija helped us a lot when we taught Vaira again. She just won't sit and listen because she has so many questions. I'm not feeling too badly that she is in the elders' area and that they will be teaching her. We met with the trolls again- talked about the Book of Mormon with Olga and Repentance with Ieva. Olga's mom doesn't want her coming to church and so it looks like we may be saying farewell to the trolls again for a time.

Sunday I had a great talk prepared off of DC 90:24 that I didn't get to give. I did get to teach an impromptu 2nd hour about the Fall and Adam and Eve. We all survived, especially with Santa's humor. "Why was it bad for Adam and Eve to eat the fruit?" "Because it wasn't washed." I threw the phone at Sister Clark after lunch and made her set up all our appointments. She did pretty well on the phone. Other than the fact that she doesn't talk into it so they people are always saying, "Allo? Allo?" We went and visited an inactive who has 8 kids and will be earning 40 lats a month. Good luck. It is so sad to see that people aren't willing to come to church- even if you flat out tell them that it will help their temporal needs be fulfilled. God really does love us and I know that he blesses us temporally and spiritually.

-Sister Lindstrom