Well, this week wins for adventures. Remember how last week Sister Gallacher and Elder Holdaway were in my district? They aren't anymore. Ha ha, yup. I'll just leave you all in suspense for a while.
On Monday Sister Gallacher and I had a busy day. Since we had said goodbye to Elder Holdaway who was going home early to see family we had the day to ourselves. We went to the three main older churches here in Liepaja. We went up to the tower of one of the Lutheran churches which was SO amazing. Gorgeous! Best 50 centimi I have spent in Liepaja. We also went to the museum, which wasn't very neat. They had large collections of old school cameras and radios that Kirstin would have liked though.
We went to meet Andris, a former investigator in the park. His lesson was amazing! He had so many questions and has been thinking about religion a lot. He was such a pleasure to teach because he would always ask questions and tell us when he agreed, disagreed, or didn't understand something. We went over some of both the restoration and the plan of salvation with him. After an hour we said that we needed to go and he was almost offended. "I'm here feeling the Spirit right now learning and you tell me you have to go?" Yup. But that Spirit is testifying that it is true. He agreed with most everything except he believes in reincarnation. We had to scurry off because we had a FHE appointment with the Frolovi. Eriks has been picking up English like crazy. He tried to pray in English, which was an entertaining thing for us to hear. “And I also want to talk about grandma. She be a good good good girl...”
Tuesday we were able to properly meet our new district member and leader, Elder Brighton. He has been serving in Klaipeda, Lithuania and is currently the district leader there as well. District leader of two different districts in two different countries = pretty cool. He is a really humble, hard working, down to earth missionary. His district meeting on Christ-like attributes was very spiritual. I learned that to gain knowledge we not only need to study but to use our faith (apply!) DC 88:118. A great scripture about patience is DC 67:13. After District Meeting we took some of Valda's old magazines from the 50s and 60s to the museum and they readily took them. I had an amazing contacting experience in the evening. I approached a couple who at first didn't want to talk at all. Almost a half of an hour later we finally said our goodbyes but not before the husband told us that now he was “half ready to meet” and that we “planted a seed” and that he has some things “to think about” now. It was so neat to have a person actually say those things. So often as missionaries we don't get to see the fruit of our labor or the seed grow that we planted, but the Lord knows what He is doing and it is all in His hands. We also had an entertaining run-in with Aina (less active) on Tuesday. She told us how she doesn't like the fat cook at her work so when she sees him she mutters scriptures in Hebrew under her breath because they are really powerful. Oh boy.
Wednesday. I love America. I didn't realize how grateful I am for my land of freedom until we were singing songs about America for the Fourth of July. I really do feel so blessed to live in a land where I haven't had my rights and privileges taken away. We have it pretty good. To celebrate we were going to have a picnic but alas, it rained. We had hotdogs and watermelon anyway. I had some computer stuff to do and SG ended up talking to Aivars for almost another two hours because she is trying to help him over his concerns. Mostly they are concerns that he has to get over himself by taking a leap of faith. I was also able to help train new member Zane to work in the Primary since the Primary president is MIA all summer.
Thursday. It is hot. I don't like hot. I would be such a baby somewhere like South America or Africa. Cold is a lot easier to deal with. We ate chocolate chip pancakes before we started our mission-wide fast (worst day EVER for fasting). We helped an inactive couple, the Martinsone move to a new apartment. I was very glad that they only lived on the second floor. We got most of the moving done in about two hours, which I thought was pretty good. The elders only stayed for 45 minutes. They would have stayed a full hour, but the map and the actual streets did not match up. It was a miracle we found their street. So, I had one of my most memorable lessons on Thursday. I don't know if you remember Zenta, but last year with Sister Ferrin she was an investigator. We set up an appointment to meet with her. We were quite surprised to see her 9-year-old disabled grandson butt-naked when we walked in. Did she try to put pants on him? No. He pushed SG around me in a circle while SG was on a computer chair with balloons on it while she pretended to blow a train whistle. Um, can we say really funny and awkward and bless Sister Gallacher's heart for being a good sport. We have another meeting set up and I REALLY hope people will have clothes on again.
At 9pm we were doing our nightly planning and we received a call. “Hey sisters, this is Assistant Kolkto. How are you? What are your plans for tomorrow? Nothing big? Good, because you are going to need to rearrange them. Sister Gallacher, you will be going to Imanta with Sister Hanks, a Russian-speaking sister. Sister Lindstrom, Sister Clark will be joining you in Liepaja tomorrow at 2pm so you don't have to travel anywhere.” What the?!!?!?!?!? Transfers aren't for another week. Speechless would be the appropriate term to describe our response. Totally not expected.
Friday was mostly spent getting all packed up. Aivars Fishmeisters, our eternal investigator in Liepaja is so great. He really is like my grandpa here. He drove our luggage to the bus station and then bought us ice cream (it was another really hot day) while we waited for the Riga sisters to get there. Their bus was 20 minutes late so Sister Kurr almost missed the return bus. She literally walked off the one bus and then got on the next. We broke our fast with baked new baby potatoes, carrots, and chicken (yum!!!) and then went to work. We showed Oskars the spirit-filled church tour and then we went to Marika's. She gave us each two ice creams- yum and we talked to her about prayer.
Saturday was mostly busy work- weekly planning, cleaning the church, working on branch stuff, and of course singing opera with Presidents. We helped the elders teach 18-year-old Viktorija about Jesus Christ. I love the Spirit. Even though I don't know Russian I knew that she was being asked to be baptized and that she had some concerns. I am glad that the elders asked her because if they weren't, I was going to! We also wrote down Zane and Kristine's conversion stories and had an awesome lesson with the Tolmachovi family. All morning study the topic we planned just seemed wrong. I prayed and the idea of giving the church tour (which is essentially the Restoration using the church building) came into my head. While we were in the Sacrament Hall Elina expressed how she had been thinking this week of how she wanted to start meeting with the missionaries and taking the discussions again to relight her testimony and how going through the church like an “investigator” was just that.
Sunday I gave a talk. I at least really enjoyed my talk. It was ten things that I had learned from my service as a missionary that was also advice to the branch. I'm sad more people weren't at church. Zane totally froze up and apparently hadn't prepared the lesson like she said she had, so improvisations had to be made. Primary turned out fine, but Presidents looks pretty stressed that he has no Sunday School teacher for recent converts nor someone to be in Primary. After I spoke in Sacrament he said a few words and got all teary-eyed and thanked people for their service. I like to think he was crying because I'm leaving, lol. He really is one of my good friends.
I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God's kingdom here on earth. I know that the Plan of Salvation is real and that Jesus is the Christ. The Book of Mormon is a testament of Him and of God's unending love for His children.
Thank you everyone for your love, support, and prayers.
See you soon! :)
Love, Sister Mari Lindstrom
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