Well, the past week has been wild. I am now with Sister Wilson and I am still in Liepaja. She has been in Riga the past ten months, so naturally she wasn't very happy to be coming down. Sister Wilson is from Utah, getting a health degree at USU, and gives me a run for the money in the kitchen. She also loves running, so pretty much she is just going to kick me into shape. She is also an amazing missionary. I am excited to be having the opportunity to work miracles with her.
On Monday we super-cleaned since transfers are on Thursday. We went to Hesburger and got food with the elders and ate it at the church and we then played Sister Ferrin's crazy version of bananagrams. I got a falafel burger, which wasn't too bad. Bananagrams was by far the highlight of my Monday. Elder Schmidt would just make up random words and scream them out. This annoyed Sister Ferrin greatly, so it was just all really funny to watch. We met with inactive (who will be staying inactive but comes to activities if you invite her) possibly crazy Elvira. We thought watching the Restoration film would keep her from telling us horror stories of her life. She still did. :) Yay for the atonement that can fix those things! We also got to meet with investigator Santa and taught her about chastity and all that fun stuff. I really don't think it is that awkward teaching the law of chastity, other than the fact that I can't say "chastity" in latvian. It has a double dipthong at the beginning that just gets me every time.
On Tuesday Sister Ferrin requested some infamous almond pear cake (thank you New York Times). We all found it quite divine and enjoyed eating it while Elder Holdway taught us of the importance of commitments as missionaries. Commitments is one thing that I am focusing on this new transfer. While I was cooking I saw a mouse! Yes, a mouse in the house. Somehow Sister Ferrin slept through the whole ordeal. It involved me on the couch with the phone talking to the elders about how to catch mice, and a broom. Yes, I screamed when the mouse popped out of the bag and then went and hid in the corner. It was one of those adventures that you wouldn't have been a baby about if you would have had someone else there. The elders thought it was hilarious and wished the mouse was in their house. They told me to build a wall, trap it in the corner, and then get it to run into the garbage can and then turn it upside down. I didn't know what to make the wall with so the stinking mouse ran off when I was chasing him into a hole by the electrical outlet. I spent the rest of my afternoon taping up all the holes in the wall that the mouse could go through. So far he hasn't been back. It took a lot out of me, I am still tired from the mouse in the house ordeal.
We got a new investigator on Tuesday. Her name is Zenta. Sister Ferrin and Santa S. (who is now on a mini mission) knocked on her door one day and we finally got to go teach her. She takes care of her grandson who has some crazy disease that only 5 people have in Latvia and is very humble but positive because of it. We had a good lesson with Oskars for his retention. We read in Alma 43 about how Moroni prepared his army and how we need to be spiritually prepared so we will be safe and come off conquerors. We met with Skaidre (a member who would be more active if she had less work) and watched the Restoration film with her (no we aren't lazy, we've been asked to go over the Restoration with them and they have a new translation in Latvian that none of the members have seen and that film brings such a sweet spirit). Skaidre was very touched.
Wednesday I made zuchinni muffins because we are going to Riga! Elder Holdaway is serving in Imanta (after being in Liepaja for 8 months straight) and Sister Ferrin in Riga Center with Sister Sutterfield and Sister Madara Zommerofska (mini-missionary). All three of them are actually finishing their missions on December 15th so in 2 transfers. Cute old Ausma wanted us to go to the doctors with her because she was getting an operation. She didn't show up at the doctor's and didn't tell us that they changed their minds, lol. No worries! We still had super fun remonting (aka remodeling) at Rihard's. Elder Schmidt pulled off wall paper with me. My most favorite thing of Wednesday was visiting the Svari family. The father is inactive and the wife not a member. They have an angel of a four year old, Tomass. He is practically perfect in politeness. He showed us the door, bowed, and then kissed Sister Ferrin's hand. It was the greatest thing I've seen in my life. We were all laughing. They have a lot of potential as a family! We stopped by Santa D.'s (the member). It was her name day. We are so glad we went. None of her friends came to visit her so we had a candle light tea and cake event to celebrate, brought her flowers, and shared a small spiritual thought.
Thursday morning we all headed to Riga. Sandijs and Rita came to say goodbye. Sandijs was crying and Rita told him to stop being a baby. She also called him a snail because she called him about 20 times so that he'd wake up in time. We barely made it to the tram with the luggage. Ugh. Girls have a LOT of stuff on a mission. I don't want to leave Liepaja. It was my half way mark on Thursday so I was thinking of being half way done and how awful it will be to say goodbye to little Liepaja; my heart and soul are here. We met a plethora of missionaries at the train station and then Sister Wilson and I headed back down and that took most of our day. We also taught Santa D. ....Riksi puked on the couch (he ate a bunch of cookies). Nothing says welcome to Liepaja like dog barf! We also had a little meeting with Sandijs and Rita. Sandijs bore a powerful testimony of his conversion story.
Friday we got to go contacting! So fun! Sister Wilson is really good with people and contacting effectively. We are also effective in the kitchen...apple raspberry bran pear muffins with a streusel topping...mmm. We are planning on not making sweets often because we both have a sweet tooth and know how to cook some good food. We had planning. I think I overwhelmed Sister Wilson. There is a mini-apostasy going on in our Branch and so there is a lot of information and it is really stressful as a member because you see good people getting beaten by Satan. We are doing everything in our power to keep the branch afloat though. This included visiting Marika and having Latvian class and then a spiritual thought about supporting our church leaders. Sister Wilson bore a great testimony that brought the spirit, she came at the perfect time. Liepaja needs her!
On Saturday we had a great English class turn out, even more people and one class member even took a Book of Mormon. They all took contact cards and hopefully we will be able to help them come unto Christ. We cleaned the church, went on an adventure to see where the elders were trying to move us (they are determined to steal our apartment because it is practically perfect in every way like Mary Poppins). We visited Lidija R. Sister Wilson saved the day again with her powerful testimony and this upcoming week President S. is coming with us to visit her.
Sunday's church meeting was excellent. The talks were all good and the second and third hour were superb. We learned about honesty and then the gathering of Israel. I stayed in RS as the RS President and Sister Wilson went to go be the Primary piano player/music leader. She plays and sings much better than I do so I am off the hook for now. We made some hearty tomato and rice soup for lunch, did some calling, and went off on a goose chase to find missing members. We didn't find any but we had a lovely night.
The church is true. The Lord answers prayers in His due time. This is His work and we should all be going about our Father's business.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Week 30
Hello hello. We should be finding out transfers later today. Everyone is so excited because there are some changes a-brewing and President Boswell was dropping hints about sending more missionaries to Liepaja, so we all want to know what is happening.
My favorite part of Monday was grocery shopping. We saw my little church neighbor best friend Maksims. Today he was wearing really old school frames (like old people ones...no offense older persons) and suspenders. I really wish that I had my camera. We went to the beach and had a picnic. We had SANDwiches. The wind started blowing and so there was sand everywhere...mmmm sandy cheese. We all had a lot of fun doing kartwheels, burying Elder Holdaway's feet in the sand, etc. etc. Rihards went with us to the Aldermani's. They didn't answer even though we set up the appointment Sunday night. We did get to meet one of the Svari brothers. The Svari family is inactive, but awesome and we have high hopes for these brothers and their families.
On Tuesday for district meeting I made "Thunder Crisp." Pretty much every elder on the mission that knows that my father's name is Thor is obsessed and anything that he cooks is the greatest thing because it must be packed with thunder. It was really yummy apple crisp with ice cream. They don't have very many different varieties of apples here. President Scerbinins helped us visit less active Tatiana. She is a really nice lady with the hugest white-lab like monster I have seen in my life; her dog was huge! It is also afraid of people, so no worries there. We watched the Restoration video with her and her daughter who was interested in the gospel. We are excited to start working with them through the Russian speaking members of our branch. We had a really neat lesson with Oskars, one of our favorite retention lesson people. We invited another member, Ludmila who has been having a bad week and we taught them from 2 Nephi 31:15-20 about what endure to the end means and what we can do to truly endure to the end. Ludmila was very grateful that we invited her to help with our lesson. Visiting inactive Velta was not as fun. She is pretty depressed and is ready to move on from this life. She was in a better mood by the end of our meeting though! Lidija is inactive now. Sad day, we had just helped her get activated. She doesn't feel like she can sacrifice the money to get herself to church.
Wednesday I had a nice little run outside. I love running; it is good stuff. We worked a lot on the Branch Directory that we are making, updating people's information and such. We also got to go help remodel at Rihard's again. I love helping! I am getting very good at ripping off wall paper. The music this time wasn't as great...Russian pop and random stuff like that. We made Sister Bonnie Jone's chicken salad for lunch which was delicious. The highlight of the night was sports. We played inside and Elder Schmidt is just ridiculous at ping pong. I ended up just sitting on the couch laughing and watching while ducking because the ping pong ball was going all over the place.
Thursday we made "Ferrin's Firehouse Chili." It isn't really Sister Ferrin's recipe, we just made it up. We found out that dried beans grow a lot. We had a LOT of beans so we shared the spice with the elders who appreciated something so spicy in Latvia. We got to go up to Rita's and go grocery shopping with her. It was fun. She doesn't like food so we enjoyed trying to guess what she would maybe eat. We settled on basic basics- yogurt, milk, cheese, bread, pasta. We got invited to Lidija L., a member's home. She has been working on the farm with her brother all summer, so we hadn't met her before then. Kirstin would like her, she milks her own cows and makes cheese from it. She used to be a nurse but she quit because she hated giving people pills and would rather help heal them spiritually. She has a super active seven year old girl Davisa who was so excited to have us over. She was waiting for us at the corner and was full of lots of hugs and did not want us to go. We had a great time with Santa Dike reading about Alma and his repentence for being a hooligan son of Mosiah going about destroying the church. She is such a great lady, goodness, we cannot get enough of her. Riksi her dog still has fleas though. Not fun. Speaking of fleas, Elder Holdaway has fleas, poor guy.
Friday consisted of more branch directorizing, planning, and helping with the apple party we had. There were all sorts of apple games; apple eating contest (little Ieva almost beat Inguss!), apple relays, apple juice sipping, blindfolded applesauce feeding, apple eating with no hands (and doused in yogurt). It was a lot of fun. Sister Ferrin and I were rubbish at the apple relays; it was almost as ridiculous as my face after she fed me applesauce blindfolded. I'm pretty sure I had more applesauce on other body parts than my head by the end. We had a pretty good turn out for our ward and we had apple desserts at the end.
Saturday we had a HUGE turn out for English class. The elders had to bring in two more tables. Cleaning took longer than normal because we got distracted talking about transfers and what could be happening. We met with Rita and taught her about hope. Poor kiddo has some rash/allergic reaction/disease and can't stop itching her rashes. The elders lost their keys on Saturday. They thought that maybe the hooligans stole it, but never fear, miracle masas are here! We prayed and then found their keys in the missionary closet! God answers prayers! Free time was spent practicing "Faith" for the Primary kids to sing. I ended up re-translating it and yeah, fun stuff!
Sunday I didn't even get to use my song translating skills because third hour President disbanned Primary because there was no one to go to Relief Society. Santa D. taught the lesson and did a great job talking about the spirit world. It was another one of those "aha" moments. There is no church in heaven, but the spirit world is organized by the church and that system still exists there. Anywho, it was sad that we had about 30 people at sacrament meeting, because it was a great meeting. Elder Schmidt, Sintija, Inguss, and Santa spoke. Santa's talk was my favorite. She spoke about missionary work and she just does a great job being funny and teaching pure doctrine. Elder Schmidt taught with the spirit and President taught second hour. He did a great job talking about revelation. I understood because someone translated it from Russian! We met with the Branch leaders and talked about our missionary efforts for a very long time and then went home ate, and took naps. Our struggling little branch is just stressing us out; we don't know how to help them. Got some meetings set up (notice the lack of a noun...you can do this in Latvian) and then met with the Frolavi family (members) in their home. Everyone behaved today and we had a really pleasant lesson.
Nothing too terribly exciting. We need to find some new investigators but life is good. Some of the leaves on the trees are starting to change and autumn is in the air, which I love. The air is just so fresh and crisp; you feel like you are in the mountains getting out of your tent in the morning.
I know that this church is true. Life is hard, the gospel is not. If we keep the commandments and are faithful, we will be blessed.
Sis. L.
My favorite part of Monday was grocery shopping. We saw my little church neighbor best friend Maksims. Today he was wearing really old school frames (like old people ones...no offense older persons) and suspenders. I really wish that I had my camera. We went to the beach and had a picnic. We had SANDwiches. The wind started blowing and so there was sand everywhere...mmmm sandy cheese. We all had a lot of fun doing kartwheels, burying Elder Holdaway's feet in the sand, etc. etc. Rihards went with us to the Aldermani's. They didn't answer even though we set up the appointment Sunday night. We did get to meet one of the Svari brothers. The Svari family is inactive, but awesome and we have high hopes for these brothers and their families.
On Tuesday for district meeting I made "Thunder Crisp." Pretty much every elder on the mission that knows that my father's name is Thor is obsessed and anything that he cooks is the greatest thing because it must be packed with thunder. It was really yummy apple crisp with ice cream. They don't have very many different varieties of apples here. President Scerbinins helped us visit less active Tatiana. She is a really nice lady with the hugest white-lab like monster I have seen in my life; her dog was huge! It is also afraid of people, so no worries there. We watched the Restoration video with her and her daughter who was interested in the gospel. We are excited to start working with them through the Russian speaking members of our branch. We had a really neat lesson with Oskars, one of our favorite retention lesson people. We invited another member, Ludmila who has been having a bad week and we taught them from 2 Nephi 31:15-20 about what endure to the end means and what we can do to truly endure to the end. Ludmila was very grateful that we invited her to help with our lesson. Visiting inactive Velta was not as fun. She is pretty depressed and is ready to move on from this life. She was in a better mood by the end of our meeting though! Lidija is inactive now. Sad day, we had just helped her get activated. She doesn't feel like she can sacrifice the money to get herself to church.
Wednesday I had a nice little run outside. I love running; it is good stuff. We worked a lot on the Branch Directory that we are making, updating people's information and such. We also got to go help remodel at Rihard's again. I love helping! I am getting very good at ripping off wall paper. The music this time wasn't as great...Russian pop and random stuff like that. We made Sister Bonnie Jone's chicken salad for lunch which was delicious. The highlight of the night was sports. We played inside and Elder Schmidt is just ridiculous at ping pong. I ended up just sitting on the couch laughing and watching while ducking because the ping pong ball was going all over the place.
Thursday we made "Ferrin's Firehouse Chili." It isn't really Sister Ferrin's recipe, we just made it up. We found out that dried beans grow a lot. We had a LOT of beans so we shared the spice with the elders who appreciated something so spicy in Latvia. We got to go up to Rita's and go grocery shopping with her. It was fun. She doesn't like food so we enjoyed trying to guess what she would maybe eat. We settled on basic basics- yogurt, milk, cheese, bread, pasta. We got invited to Lidija L., a member's home. She has been working on the farm with her brother all summer, so we hadn't met her before then. Kirstin would like her, she milks her own cows and makes cheese from it. She used to be a nurse but she quit because she hated giving people pills and would rather help heal them spiritually. She has a super active seven year old girl Davisa who was so excited to have us over. She was waiting for us at the corner and was full of lots of hugs and did not want us to go. We had a great time with Santa Dike reading about Alma and his repentence for being a hooligan son of Mosiah going about destroying the church. She is such a great lady, goodness, we cannot get enough of her. Riksi her dog still has fleas though. Not fun. Speaking of fleas, Elder Holdaway has fleas, poor guy.
Friday consisted of more branch directorizing, planning, and helping with the apple party we had. There were all sorts of apple games; apple eating contest (little Ieva almost beat Inguss!), apple relays, apple juice sipping, blindfolded applesauce feeding, apple eating with no hands (and doused in yogurt). It was a lot of fun. Sister Ferrin and I were rubbish at the apple relays; it was almost as ridiculous as my face after she fed me applesauce blindfolded. I'm pretty sure I had more applesauce on other body parts than my head by the end. We had a pretty good turn out for our ward and we had apple desserts at the end.
Saturday we had a HUGE turn out for English class. The elders had to bring in two more tables. Cleaning took longer than normal because we got distracted talking about transfers and what could be happening. We met with Rita and taught her about hope. Poor kiddo has some rash/allergic reaction/disease and can't stop itching her rashes. The elders lost their keys on Saturday. They thought that maybe the hooligans stole it, but never fear, miracle masas are here! We prayed and then found their keys in the missionary closet! God answers prayers! Free time was spent practicing "Faith" for the Primary kids to sing. I ended up re-translating it and yeah, fun stuff!
Sunday I didn't even get to use my song translating skills because third hour President disbanned Primary because there was no one to go to Relief Society. Santa D. taught the lesson and did a great job talking about the spirit world. It was another one of those "aha" moments. There is no church in heaven, but the spirit world is organized by the church and that system still exists there. Anywho, it was sad that we had about 30 people at sacrament meeting, because it was a great meeting. Elder Schmidt, Sintija, Inguss, and Santa spoke. Santa's talk was my favorite. She spoke about missionary work and she just does a great job being funny and teaching pure doctrine. Elder Schmidt taught with the spirit and President taught second hour. He did a great job talking about revelation. I understood because someone translated it from Russian! We met with the Branch leaders and talked about our missionary efforts for a very long time and then went home ate, and took naps. Our struggling little branch is just stressing us out; we don't know how to help them. Got some meetings set up (notice the lack of a noun...you can do this in Latvian) and then met with the Frolavi family (members) in their home. Everyone behaved today and we had a really pleasant lesson.
Nothing too terribly exciting. We need to find some new investigators but life is good. Some of the leaves on the trees are starting to change and autumn is in the air, which I love. The air is just so fresh and crisp; you feel like you are in the mountains getting out of your tent in the morning.
I know that this church is true. Life is hard, the gospel is not. If we keep the commandments and are faithful, we will be blessed.
Sis. L.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Week 29
Hello!
So on Monday we didn't get to go biking because Sister Ferrin wasn't feeling well. Sad day, I was excited to go biking, but we should be going to the beach this Monday! We took Sintija and Sandijs with us to Panna. It was an okay food joint, not my favorite. Everyone enjoyed watching the Discovery channel playing on the telly (except Sister Ferrin, it was a show on snakes and she hates snakes). Sintija went with us to Humana (aka Savers/DI) and we had fun finding awful clothes and then we got caught out in a rainstorm with Sintija...we were both trying to fit under my mini umbrella and running through the tirgus (aka market of the outdoor variety); it was pretty fun. We went and had a great lesson with the Tolmačovi family. Sister Tolmačovi's heart is softening. She actually came to church with the girls all by herself this Sunday. Anywho, Sister Ferrin was feeling uber yucky, so the elders came over in the evening and gave her a blessing.
District Meeting was definitely a meeting. We ended up spending two hours discussing branch council and how to help our ward. Good times. I made some yummy stuffed peppers for lunch. The Brothers three (investigators) skipped out on their meeting so we went to find them. Their mother was not very happy to see us, but their neighbor was! He was very friendly and we were able to talk to him a bit about The Book of Mormon and invite him to church. Santa Dike is being such a great member! She told us that the other day on her mail route she talked to some drunks for a half hour and taught them about the Word of Wisdom and told them to quit. We went and had a great lesson with the Beldavi family (members). Dace, the mom really opened up and I am going to help her with music in primary.
On Wednesday we got to go to the thyroid doctor. That was an adventure, he is a really nice jolly older man. I like him. The health care may not be as sanitary and effective as in America, but it sure was fast. Sister Ferrin was able to get blood tests and an ultrasound on her thyroids the same day (no worries, her thyroids don't have cancer or anything bad...they are good). We took Zelma Golta (member) on a church tour and she was really touched and feels bad that she can't serve more. I tried to make wheat bread. It was a flop. I'm pretty sure it is because I killed the yeast....warm water not hot! I just got distracted because I was multi task cooking so I had to make a white loaf for Sister Ferrin to celebrate her year mark in the field! We had a good meeting with Oskars (member). He is going to get his Patriarchal (spelling?) blessing! This is a huge deal because like only 2 from Liepaja get theirsevery year.
Thursday was weekly planning and ice pack hunting. We found out what an ice pack is called and that they cost twelve US dollars. I settled for the bag of peas, which has been helping with my chronic compartment syndrome. Made some Italian barley casserole (it was, well, interesting.) We had a good time with all our investigators at the Thursday night activity playing musical chairs and charades. Little 8-year-old investigator Krists said "beautiful princess" when Sister Ferrin was acting out something very unrelated to being a beautiful princess. Rita did a great job bearing her testimony and talking about prayer. It fit in perfectly with the lesson with Santa S. that Sandijs had helped us with. We found out though this week that Santa's mom won't allow her to get baptized (she is fifteen). We also met with the brothers 3 who were being hooligans. We weren't too happy about their goofing off. Thursday night Sister Ferrin and I had a bang cutting party. I am not regretting this. Growing out bangs + glasses = doesn't work.
Friday we got to visit cute ole Ausma. She is knitting us socks. I got to take down wallpaper at Rihard's. I found a nail and have an infected pinkie, and we had a lot of fun. Sister Ferrin ran into the door she just painted red. I laughed a lot about that one. We met with the Hooligani again. They were much better when we met with them on Friday with Sister S. Krists once again was adorable. He said both prayers (he wanted lots of cookies) and it was so cute- him saying thanks for the nice people and the nice church and knowing that the BOM was true. It made my day because our night sucked! Something awful happened to Rita, so long story short she stayed with us Friday night after Rihards gave her a blessing.
Saturday she stayed with us most of the day. Our english class brought us flowers since it is a tradition for the first of September when the kids here start school to dress up and take flowers.
Sunday President Boswell came. Sister F. and I got to translate an interview with him and Rita. He is awesome. We got to have interviews as well. President Boswell rocks. He is a good man and has a lot of trust in me. He also told me to start winking at God, I'll have to tell you about that one later. Sunday night after napping and dinner we went with Rihards and set up a bunch of appointments with people we have been trying to get into forever! He is a great member missionary
woot!
Time is pretty much up. Keep Rita in your prayers, she needs it.
So on Monday we didn't get to go biking because Sister Ferrin wasn't feeling well. Sad day, I was excited to go biking, but we should be going to the beach this Monday! We took Sintija and Sandijs with us to Panna. It was an okay food joint, not my favorite. Everyone enjoyed watching the Discovery channel playing on the telly (except Sister Ferrin, it was a show on snakes and she hates snakes). Sintija went with us to Humana (aka Savers/DI) and we had fun finding awful clothes and then we got caught out in a rainstorm with Sintija...we were both trying to fit under my mini umbrella and running through the tirgus (aka market of the outdoor variety); it was pretty fun. We went and had a great lesson with the Tolmačovi family. Sister Tolmačovi's heart is softening. She actually came to church with the girls all by herself this Sunday. Anywho, Sister Ferrin was feeling uber yucky, so the elders came over in the evening and gave her a blessing.
District Meeting was definitely a meeting. We ended up spending two hours discussing branch council and how to help our ward. Good times. I made some yummy stuffed peppers for lunch. The Brothers three (investigators) skipped out on their meeting so we went to find them. Their mother was not very happy to see us, but their neighbor was! He was very friendly and we were able to talk to him a bit about The Book of Mormon and invite him to church. Santa Dike is being such a great member! She told us that the other day on her mail route she talked to some drunks for a half hour and taught them about the Word of Wisdom and told them to quit. We went and had a great lesson with the Beldavi family (members). Dace, the mom really opened up and I am going to help her with music in primary.
On Wednesday we got to go to the thyroid doctor. That was an adventure, he is a really nice jolly older man. I like him. The health care may not be as sanitary and effective as in America, but it sure was fast. Sister Ferrin was able to get blood tests and an ultrasound on her thyroids the same day (no worries, her thyroids don't have cancer or anything bad...they are good). We took Zelma Golta (member) on a church tour and she was really touched and feels bad that she can't serve more. I tried to make wheat bread. It was a flop. I'm pretty sure it is because I killed the yeast....warm water not hot! I just got distracted because I was multi task cooking so I had to make a white loaf for Sister Ferrin to celebrate her year mark in the field! We had a good meeting with Oskars (member). He is going to get his Patriarchal (spelling?) blessing! This is a huge deal because like only 2 from Liepaja get theirsevery year.
Thursday was weekly planning and ice pack hunting. We found out what an ice pack is called and that they cost twelve US dollars. I settled for the bag of peas, which has been helping with my chronic compartment syndrome. Made some Italian barley casserole (it was, well, interesting.) We had a good time with all our investigators at the Thursday night activity playing musical chairs and charades. Little 8-year-old investigator Krists said "beautiful princess" when Sister Ferrin was acting out something very unrelated to being a beautiful princess. Rita did a great job bearing her testimony and talking about prayer. It fit in perfectly with the lesson with Santa S. that Sandijs had helped us with. We found out though this week that Santa's mom won't allow her to get baptized (she is fifteen). We also met with the brothers 3 who were being hooligans. We weren't too happy about their goofing off. Thursday night Sister Ferrin and I had a bang cutting party. I am not regretting this. Growing out bangs + glasses = doesn't work.
Friday we got to visit cute ole Ausma. She is knitting us socks. I got to take down wallpaper at Rihard's. I found a nail and have an infected pinkie, and we had a lot of fun. Sister Ferrin ran into the door she just painted red. I laughed a lot about that one. We met with the Hooligani again. They were much better when we met with them on Friday with Sister S. Krists once again was adorable. He said both prayers (he wanted lots of cookies) and it was so cute- him saying thanks for the nice people and the nice church and knowing that the BOM was true. It made my day because our night sucked! Something awful happened to Rita, so long story short she stayed with us Friday night after Rihards gave her a blessing.
Saturday she stayed with us most of the day. Our english class brought us flowers since it is a tradition for the first of September when the kids here start school to dress up and take flowers.
Sunday President Boswell came. Sister F. and I got to translate an interview with him and Rita. He is awesome. We got to have interviews as well. President Boswell rocks. He is a good man and has a lot of trust in me. He also told me to start winking at God, I'll have to tell you about that one later. Sunday night after napping and dinner we went with Rihards and set up a bunch of appointments with people we have been trying to get into forever! He is a great member missionary
woot!
Time is pretty much up. Keep Rita in your prayers, she needs it.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Week 28
On Monday we ate at Pastnieka Maja. I decided that it isn't very fun when you eat at your favorite restaurant all the time because then it gets boring. That was probably the highlight of the preparing part of Monday and then in the evening we were able to meet with some of the hooligans (now called the Brothers 3 after Sister Ferrin prayed a really funny prayer that involved the words, "Please bless the hooligans. Uhh..and by hooligans I mean really nice boys." Only Martins and his little brother Chris showed up. We taught them the Word of Wisdom (which did not go over well in retrospect).
On Tuesday I baked my first no-knead bread (recipe by the mighty Thor). Other than the fact that my cornmeal was a little too "generous" it turned out really well. We gobbled it all up for District Meeting with jam and cheese and all the fixings. We got jaked/boffed/had lots of people not show up for appointments this week. I really do appreciate considerate people who tell you when they are not going to be somewhere they said they were. Anywho we did get a chance to meet with the Brothers 3 (who had jaked us earlier in the day) and we taught them five out of the ten commandments. We taught investigator Santa S. the same and we had a fun time as always with member Santa D. in the evening. We talked about keeping the Sabbath Day holy, so now she knows for sure, no shopping on Sundays! She is such an obedient member. We love her.
Wednesday morning we met with members Annika and Rihards and got all the "dirt" on members. Annika has an incredible memory. She knows what street many of the members live on. We met with them to help us know about who has moved, been offended, etc. I had another brave cooking day...baked salmon! It turned out really well considering it was all being made up as I went along. We had a really nice lesson with Rita on Personal Revelation. We read a section in Preach My Gospel about it and then went to the scriptures. Sports was interesting. The elders were go to Riga on exchanges so it was just us sisters. Ward members Sintija, Rita, Sandijs (he is practically a member), Inguss, and Inguss' little brother Raivo were there. The brothers three showed up about a half an hour late (so not them...they LOVE sports) and so we played with them then. I scored three goals! I wanted to tell Martins that is what he gets for thinking the Word of Wisdom is dumb, but I kept that thought to myself. Sister Ferrin and Raivo were a hoot and a half to watch runnning around chasing each other with a football and later hockey sticks. Sintija (Cynthia) slammed the Relief Society door which somehow set off the fire alarm. Naturally the police had to come and instead of leaving everyone had to come inside and see what was happening. In the end we just let the alarm keep going (it was only the pre-alarm) and we re-taught Martins and taught Davis the Word of Wisdom since they wouldn't leave the church and we still had to wait there. Apparently we were very unclear because Martins thought that we couldn't eat meat. We didn't even talk about meat; I have no idea where he got that from. I also saw a nun on a bicycle with a backpack. And my soul delighted in the sight there of.
On Thursday we got jaked some more. Four times to be exact. And all of them members, how ironic. We were able to meet with our investigator Santa and her sister Alina. We taught the Word of Wisdom which she readily accepted (it is so easy when you don't like tea, coffee, alcohol, and smoking!) and then we had our branch activity that is supposed to be like family home evening but has turned into youth party night already. We played four men on a couch (any one think that I'm writing about BYU yet?). My team won both times. We gave the Frolavi family a tour (Eriks, Sintija, and their dad Uldis). It wasn't so good. Let's just say zombies, eating brains, and killing spiders were involved in our attempted tour. So Eriks went and got his hair cut all by himself. You should not let seven year olds do this. He came back with a "euro-hawk" with stars shaven in on one side and waves on the other. I thought that was pretty great that his dad didn't even know until he exclaimed, "Dad! Look at my star!" "Oh yeah, yeah, nice." (and pats Eriks' head) "No. Look!" (tilts head more) "Oh. That's cool."
We met with inactive Ena. Rita came along and helped. We had a great discussion about the Book of Mormon. Ena remembers a lot, but isn't willing to come to church while she knows she is breaking commandments, so for now we don't have much reason to visit her often since her situation won't be changing soon. Sad day. We got some Finnish ice cream since another member jaked us. Food highlight...corn on the cob. It had many memories of summer even though it was over-ripe and not very good. It was a final farewell to summer because fall is here. It has been raining about every other day and Saturday was our last warm day of the season. We finally got to meet with Olita, the lady who I called, jaked us, we contacted, jaked us again, etc. etc. She loved the church tour! She also wants to meet again. She has a good light about her.
Another great church tour happened on Saturday. We met Liene and her two daughters sitting outside the Catholic Cathedral and brought them to our church. We gave them a tour which their mother loved. They live about 10 miles outside of Liepaja but she wants to come to church next week. We had an eventful lesson with Santa S.'s mom. They came before English so Sandijs was helping us teach the Plan of Salvation. Then Santa D. came early and decided that she was going to sit in on the lesson. She is a character and made the lesson a lot lighter. Santa S.'s mom agreed with all that we taught, but when you are born pra-va-slav-nuh (Russian orthodox) you die that way because it is a sin to change religions. I'm still trying to figure out a nice way to tell people that if a religion isn't true then it is no sin to leave it because it isn't true. Any who, we had another large English class. In the evening we convinced the brothers 3 to watch Finding Faith in Christ. They watched it in English as opposed to Russian, so who knows how much they understood. It was weird watching that film in English! It has been a VERY long time. We finally got little Chris to pray! You just have to bribe him with cookies. He gave a great prayer though and is now to page twenty-four in the Book of Mormon. So there was a huge car rally here and it brought out the likes of Latvians that we have never seen (think the unpolitically correct term "white trash"). It was interesting to see so many different people. There were a lot of activities going around the city. Sandijs and Rita got to pretend to be in a rollover accident. A car company was teaching people how to get out of your car if it has rolled over. They also had "drunk googles" and were talking about drunk driving, so that was good to see. Eww. I did my service for the month. A cat or some other mammal decided to leave very yucky smelly gross fish diarrhea by our door and I cleaned it up. Yuck. I bought myself ice cream for that one. The hallway still reeks a little bit.
No one was at church on Sunday. But the Tolmacovi came, so that was a Sunday miracle. The brothers brought some hooligans and they were very bad and disrespectful during sacrament meeting. We don't know what is wrong with them. It was a nice meeting other than the noise and laser pointer. Elder Holdaway spoke as well as Rita. She is doing so good! Sister Ferrin and I taught Relief Society to three women (and then one left. And one was visiting from Riga). It was a good lesson though...from the talk about to do v. to be. I definitely recommend reading it again. Good stuff. We stopped by Lidija Ruble's house. She isn't coming to church anymore except for on Fast Sundays because she doesn't have enough money for transportation. Sad day. She really appreciated the visit and the lesson on the Plan of Salvation provided by Sister Ferrin. We almost had our meeting with Sandijs' mom so he can get baptized. Alas, he went to Santa S.'s birthday party instead. We actually saw them at the park on the tram ride home so we got off and said "hi."
And that is about all for the week, lots of people didn't show up and lots of making phone calls but that isn't too exciting to write about.
I know that we have a Savior, Jesus Christ. He has been through it all. Our Father in Heaven loves us and wants us to be happy. He has provided us the means to do so. May we always be worthy to live with him.
Sis. L.
On Tuesday I baked my first no-knead bread (recipe by the mighty Thor). Other than the fact that my cornmeal was a little too "generous" it turned out really well. We gobbled it all up for District Meeting with jam and cheese and all the fixings. We got jaked/boffed/had lots of people not show up for appointments this week. I really do appreciate considerate people who tell you when they are not going to be somewhere they said they were. Anywho we did get a chance to meet with the Brothers 3 (who had jaked us earlier in the day) and we taught them five out of the ten commandments. We taught investigator Santa S. the same and we had a fun time as always with member Santa D. in the evening. We talked about keeping the Sabbath Day holy, so now she knows for sure, no shopping on Sundays! She is such an obedient member. We love her.
Wednesday morning we met with members Annika and Rihards and got all the "dirt" on members. Annika has an incredible memory. She knows what street many of the members live on. We met with them to help us know about who has moved, been offended, etc. I had another brave cooking day...baked salmon! It turned out really well considering it was all being made up as I went along. We had a really nice lesson with Rita on Personal Revelation. We read a section in Preach My Gospel about it and then went to the scriptures. Sports was interesting. The elders were go to Riga on exchanges so it was just us sisters. Ward members Sintija, Rita, Sandijs (he is practically a member), Inguss, and Inguss' little brother Raivo were there. The brothers three showed up about a half an hour late (so not them...they LOVE sports) and so we played with them then. I scored three goals! I wanted to tell Martins that is what he gets for thinking the Word of Wisdom is dumb, but I kept that thought to myself. Sister Ferrin and Raivo were a hoot and a half to watch runnning around chasing each other with a football and later hockey sticks. Sintija (Cynthia) slammed the Relief Society door which somehow set off the fire alarm. Naturally the police had to come and instead of leaving everyone had to come inside and see what was happening. In the end we just let the alarm keep going (it was only the pre-alarm) and we re-taught Martins and taught Davis the Word of Wisdom since they wouldn't leave the church and we still had to wait there. Apparently we were very unclear because Martins thought that we couldn't eat meat. We didn't even talk about meat; I have no idea where he got that from. I also saw a nun on a bicycle with a backpack. And my soul delighted in the sight there of.
On Thursday we got jaked some more. Four times to be exact. And all of them members, how ironic. We were able to meet with our investigator Santa and her sister Alina. We taught the Word of Wisdom which she readily accepted (it is so easy when you don't like tea, coffee, alcohol, and smoking!) and then we had our branch activity that is supposed to be like family home evening but has turned into youth party night already. We played four men on a couch (any one think that I'm writing about BYU yet?). My team won both times. We gave the Frolavi family a tour (Eriks, Sintija, and their dad Uldis). It wasn't so good. Let's just say zombies, eating brains, and killing spiders were involved in our attempted tour. So Eriks went and got his hair cut all by himself. You should not let seven year olds do this. He came back with a "euro-hawk" with stars shaven in on one side and waves on the other. I thought that was pretty great that his dad didn't even know until he exclaimed, "Dad! Look at my star!" "Oh yeah, yeah, nice." (and pats Eriks' head) "No. Look!" (tilts head more) "Oh. That's cool."
We met with inactive Ena. Rita came along and helped. We had a great discussion about the Book of Mormon. Ena remembers a lot, but isn't willing to come to church while she knows she is breaking commandments, so for now we don't have much reason to visit her often since her situation won't be changing soon. Sad day. We got some Finnish ice cream since another member jaked us. Food highlight...corn on the cob. It had many memories of summer even though it was over-ripe and not very good. It was a final farewell to summer because fall is here. It has been raining about every other day and Saturday was our last warm day of the season. We finally got to meet with Olita, the lady who I called, jaked us, we contacted, jaked us again, etc. etc. She loved the church tour! She also wants to meet again. She has a good light about her.
Another great church tour happened on Saturday. We met Liene and her two daughters sitting outside the Catholic Cathedral and brought them to our church. We gave them a tour which their mother loved. They live about 10 miles outside of Liepaja but she wants to come to church next week. We had an eventful lesson with Santa S.'s mom. They came before English so Sandijs was helping us teach the Plan of Salvation. Then Santa D. came early and decided that she was going to sit in on the lesson. She is a character and made the lesson a lot lighter. Santa S.'s mom agreed with all that we taught, but when you are born pra-va-slav-nuh (Russian orthodox) you die that way because it is a sin to change religions. I'm still trying to figure out a nice way to tell people that if a religion isn't true then it is no sin to leave it because it isn't true. Any who, we had another large English class. In the evening we convinced the brothers 3 to watch Finding Faith in Christ. They watched it in English as opposed to Russian, so who knows how much they understood. It was weird watching that film in English! It has been a VERY long time. We finally got little Chris to pray! You just have to bribe him with cookies. He gave a great prayer though and is now to page twenty-four in the Book of Mormon. So there was a huge car rally here and it brought out the likes of Latvians that we have never seen (think the unpolitically correct term "white trash"). It was interesting to see so many different people. There were a lot of activities going around the city. Sandijs and Rita got to pretend to be in a rollover accident. A car company was teaching people how to get out of your car if it has rolled over. They also had "drunk googles" and were talking about drunk driving, so that was good to see. Eww. I did my service for the month. A cat or some other mammal decided to leave very yucky smelly gross fish diarrhea by our door and I cleaned it up. Yuck. I bought myself ice cream for that one. The hallway still reeks a little bit.
No one was at church on Sunday. But the Tolmacovi came, so that was a Sunday miracle. The brothers brought some hooligans and they were very bad and disrespectful during sacrament meeting. We don't know what is wrong with them. It was a nice meeting other than the noise and laser pointer. Elder Holdaway spoke as well as Rita. She is doing so good! Sister Ferrin and I taught Relief Society to three women (and then one left. And one was visiting from Riga). It was a good lesson though...from the talk about to do v. to be. I definitely recommend reading it again. Good stuff. We stopped by Lidija Ruble's house. She isn't coming to church anymore except for on Fast Sundays because she doesn't have enough money for transportation. Sad day. She really appreciated the visit and the lesson on the Plan of Salvation provided by Sister Ferrin. We almost had our meeting with Sandijs' mom so he can get baptized. Alas, he went to Santa S.'s birthday party instead. We actually saw them at the park on the tram ride home so we got off and said "hi."
And that is about all for the week, lots of people didn't show up and lots of making phone calls but that isn't too exciting to write about.
I know that we have a Savior, Jesus Christ. He has been through it all. Our Father in Heaven loves us and wants us to be happy. He has provided us the means to do so. May we always be worthy to live with him.
Sis. L.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Week 27
Me and Sister Hardy, the best office lady in town.
Okay so finishing up last week. Thursday was tea party day. I had way too much tea. Skaidre, a member we visited after Santa Dike, fed us tea as well. She had the HUGEST cat on the planet. The thing must have weighed at least twenty pounds. She is really excited to be more active in the church since she won't be working as much.
On Friday Sister Ferrin got sick so I went on a crazy cooking spree: blueberry muffins, soup, chocolate banana bread, etc. Before she slept off her cold we had the trolls, Ieva and Olga jake us. Poor Sister Ferrin was just lying on the couch until President S. made her move. "People might look in and think 'What is going on there?'" He made her some tea from the leaves of a linden tree. I worked a lot on our little lost sheep project.
Saturday we taught English as well as Elvira Skube, an inactive. She talked. A lot. She has seen some really awful things in her life, it was sad. She doesn't come to our church anymore because someone once told her that she couldn't read her poems at an activity. I thought of the Gardners a lot as I was cleaning the church this Saturday. I thought to myself, "What would Brother Gardner have me clean?" And then I would go and clean it!
On Sunday I was able to go to Young Women and participate in a great lesson about repentance. We talked about forgiving yourself and that if you haven't it probably means that you need more faith in Christ's atonement. We had a lesson with Santa S. (an investigator) and her younger sister. Afterwards I dragged the hooligans in and asked them who was interested in learning about the gospel (They were at church all three hours today). One of them, Davis, is interested in learning more! We had them all watch The Restoration film with us.
Monday we ate at Cafe 21. I got potato pancakes, yum! They have corn at the market now! I haven't bought any though because it costs $1.20 US an ear. Zoinks! I made a chocolate pie...the crust didn't turn out too well. We went to go find inactives. My favorite moment was the neighbor kids of this older lady. "Who are you?" "Missionaries." "Pensioners?" "No. Missionaries." "What is that?" We then had an enjoyable conversation and they told us how their neighbor yells at them to be quiet and now they know that we are not old people who live off governmental subsidies.
Tuesday we worked on making a church tour in District Meeting. President Boswell is so inspired! We have done the tour a few times and with excellent results. You can really feel the spirit and it is just so much fun to use the beautiful building and all of the paintings. I made some creamy cauliflower soup because autumn keeps on showing up about every other day. We taught Davis (16 year old hooligan who we play floorball with) the Restoration. He is a smart kid. And he asks questions when he doesn't understand. I love it.
We had a crazy adventure in the morning on Wednesday. We went to visit a woman who was contacted in 2005. Her name is Martina. Turns out Martina is actually one of the elders' investigators as well as the lady that Madara babysat for. We had a great lesson with her. She is such an amazing mother with high standards for raising her children. She fed us some yummy tea, mate aquante. I guess they drink it all the time in Brazil. She is really interested in learning about the gospel and wants to come to church, she is just insanely busy (3 kids, two jobs, school, a husband at sea, an internship). We actually met the elders on the street coming out of her lesson so we told them what happened and then they shared about a miracle they just had. They found out that this member who was blind can hear now and that her and her grandmother want to come back to church. They also put together the pieces that this man who is deaf could now be taught (before his daughter translated and changed what the missionaries said). "All this time we thought he was a jerk for never answering when we knocked on his door. But he is deaf! He could never hear it!" I'm still wondering how you get in contact with deaf persons then if they live alone. Anywho we went on an adventure with Santa D. (member) to Nadezda (another member who is Russian). We talked with her about hope (after a very long fussy time in companionship study deciding what to teach). Turns out that her name means hope in Russia! God works in mysterious ways! There is a new hooligan, Chris (who as of today has a baptismal date) who complimented me on my floorball skills. This is a huge compliment from a 13-year-old boy. I felt pretty proud of myself. Acceptance by the hoolies! Yes! We met with sweet Liga and taught her about service and callings. She is off to the woods again so she won't be at church.
Obedience to God truly makes us happy. I've been learning that a lot lately. We met with Ieva and Olga. We took them on a church tour and they told us that their boyfriends wouldn't let them come to church (lie) and that they quit smoking 6 weeks ago (we were still meeting with them 6 weeks ago. Another lie. Sigh.) When they left they lit up on church property. Sad day to see that they haven't yet had that change of heart. Annika taught us Latvian today and there was a really special spirit when we took Oskars on the church tour. Teaching Davis the plan of salvation was so fun! He is such a smart kid, he started asking questions and we would just smile and say, "Wait a minute. We're almost there." It really is neat to see how sincere his interest is and to see him working it all out in his head. He has two brothers, Chris (8) and Martins (16), that have came to church with him the past two Sundays. They are always playing in the church parking lot (or in the church). We had our first Branch party that Rita was in charge of. It went well though we didn't have a large branch turn out (but a large hooligan turn out!). We played charades and I just about died when cute 80-something year old Ausma pretended to be a bear and was stomping around in her flowered skirt with her hands above her head.
Friday we did weekly planning and met with Marika, a member since 2002 or so. She opened up a lot and we learned a lot about the war and the occupation. It is sad how so many people got sent away and how many people died, how many families were split up. She told us how her mom thought her brother had died. He had actually gone into hiding so he wouldn't get sent to Siberia and then years and years later they met again. Latvian people have a hard time hearing the gospel in Russian because that is the language they were forced to speak and the language that banned God from their lives. It explains a lot of why so many Latvians are so grateful and so impressed that we as missionaries have learned Latvian so well and so quickly. There was a beautiful lightning storm tonight! Rita and Sister Ferrin were scared and were jumping left and right. I just laughed as we walked home.
Saturday we had a huge English class! Irina, Viktoria's friend (who is Santa's friend) took a Book of Mormon! We taught Davis about the gospel of Jesus Christ and then committed him to baptism! Sweet Ludmilla was the only one who came and helped us clean besides Rita. I took a whack at making rataouille. Not as good as in France, but I still appreciate all the summer vegetables we have here.
Well, karma hit me on Sunday. I always made fun of my mother for sticking out her tongue and making faces when she plays the organ in church. I got to play the piano in church. For someone who hasn't had a lesson since second grade this was quite nerve wracking. Many faces were made and wrong notes played. I survived though and all the missionaries were very supportive. Sister Scebinina gave a great Sunday School lesson from Acts about how everyone is important in the church. I had the opportunity to translate Relief Society for Maria. She lives in Ireland, is from Portugal, and is married to a man from Latvia. It was neat that the focus of church today was the temple and she is planning to go perform baptisms for the dead for the first time next month. Santa D. did a good job teaching about the temple especially since she hasn't been. The ladies who had been didn't delve in too much about the temple, so that was good. We had a crazy mega lesson Sunday night with the elders. Martins, Davis, Chris, Chris, Rita, Rita's friend and the elders. We taught from Mosiah 18 and now we have Martins, Davis, the older Chris with baptismal dates and the younger Chris and Rita's friend thinking about being baptized! How neat is that!
The church is true and God will have it His way.
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
The girls of Latvia. Lindstrom, Wilson, Sutterfield, Ferrin, Madara
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Week 26
Hello Hello from Liepaja (lee-uh-pie-juh). I was just thinking how silly you must think some things are here because you don't know how they are pronounced, like Santa is not like Santa Clause but with a soft a.
I want to explain more about name days. Here in Latvia they have name days. Different names are celebrated every day. If it is your name day it is like a birthday party! Everyone comes to you and you have cake and they can bring presents and it is just a lot of fun. They have lots of memorial holidays. They will often get off work for these and it is required by law to put up a Latvian flag on every building on these days.
On Monday we decided to eat at the restaurant in Hotel Liva with Rihards. We got this amazing cheese bread. It was this gooey crazy wad of toasted bread strips with cheese melted all over. It was much better than the main course which sort of reminded me of KFC. I made Sister Hectle's blueberry dessert with fresh blueberries and we were able to take some of it over to family home evening with the Tolmacovi. With the Tolmacovi we went over the Restoration. The spirit was really great by the end of the lesson. We did some tracting/knocking/harvesting afterwards and there wasn't really anything noteworthy there.
Tuesday was filled with random downpours. District Meeting was filled with tangents. I feel really bad. We had new Elder Schmidt from Canada and we just weren't behaving ourselves too well because things were just too silly. We were very wet by the end of the day. In the evening I had on my big trench coat with hood as I walked onto the tram with its fogged up windows. I felt like a demeantor looking for people's souls. Sadly the only soul that we found last night was a rather old man in a speedo. We did not accept his invitation to come in.
On Wednesday we had a wonderful zone conference in Riga. We talked about the new handbook and some of the chapters within. Quote worthy quotes "There is no church in heaven." (think about that one!...it is all family run) and that things should be "home centered, church supported." Also Elder Burr (who has about a zillion baptismal dates in Imanta), "I'm turning Imanta into Argentina." Odd to think that we have been in Latvia for six months now! The Assistants helped President Boswell introduce our new focus as missionaries for the next little while. Finding the lost sheep! We had a great discussion about Alma 17. We have a goal to get in contact with every church member by October 23. Why? To get wards, stakes, and then a temple. Also, member work is very effective in the Baltics and we spend very little time on it considering how many baptisms it yields.
Baptisms in the Baltics since 2009
14% found it themselves/came on their own
20% found harvesting (knocking doors)
23% contacting
17% from English class
35% from referrals
The Zone leaders talked to us about internalizing goals and making them SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound) goals. I'm pretty pumped. President Boswell and I are on the same page. We like trying to create as many smiles as possible and think that less active work is important.
After Zone conference we went with the other sisters and got muffins. Poor Madara is pretty homesick. The bus ride home was enjoyable, we had an entertaining conversation with the elders.
On Thursday I found out that beef is nasty when it goes bad. It turned all gray. Yuck! We didn't eat it. Planning was hilarious. Sister Ferrin was tired, so she was in a horizontal position on the couch, not really wanting to do anything, but being a good sport and planning anyway. I ask her, "So what do you want to teach Santa?" "Celibacy." "What? Sister Ferrin? Sister Ferrrriiiinnnn...." She was out cold. We had an evening jam packed with member lessons. We got to talk to Rita about her goals. I am so excited for her! She is twenty two and has decided to go back and finish high school. Look out class of 2014! She also kind of sort of wants to serve a mission. It is great to see the gospel changing her life. We taught Oskars about tithing, he is a trooper as always. Poor Santa was feeling under the weather so she made us chamomile tea and we had cookies. She made us drink two cups and we had a really thought provoking lesson with her about the atonement.
Friday was filled with lots of cooking and working on the less active/lost sheep project.
I want to explain more about name days. Here in Latvia they have name days. Different names are celebrated every day. If it is your name day it is like a birthday party! Everyone comes to you and you have cake and they can bring presents and it is just a lot of fun. They have lots of memorial holidays. They will often get off work for these and it is required by law to put up a Latvian flag on every building on these days.
On Monday we decided to eat at the restaurant in Hotel Liva with Rihards. We got this amazing cheese bread. It was this gooey crazy wad of toasted bread strips with cheese melted all over. It was much better than the main course which sort of reminded me of KFC. I made Sister Hectle's blueberry dessert with fresh blueberries and we were able to take some of it over to family home evening with the Tolmacovi. With the Tolmacovi we went over the Restoration. The spirit was really great by the end of the lesson. We did some tracting/knocking/harvesting afterwards and there wasn't really anything noteworthy there.
Tuesday was filled with random downpours. District Meeting was filled with tangents. I feel really bad. We had new Elder Schmidt from Canada and we just weren't behaving ourselves too well because things were just too silly. We were very wet by the end of the day. In the evening I had on my big trench coat with hood as I walked onto the tram with its fogged up windows. I felt like a demeantor looking for people's souls. Sadly the only soul that we found last night was a rather old man in a speedo. We did not accept his invitation to come in.
On Wednesday we had a wonderful zone conference in Riga. We talked about the new handbook and some of the chapters within. Quote worthy quotes "There is no church in heaven." (think about that one!...it is all family run) and that things should be "home centered, church supported." Also Elder Burr (who has about a zillion baptismal dates in Imanta), "I'm turning Imanta into Argentina." Odd to think that we have been in Latvia for six months now! The Assistants helped President Boswell introduce our new focus as missionaries for the next little while. Finding the lost sheep! We had a great discussion about Alma 17. We have a goal to get in contact with every church member by October 23. Why? To get wards, stakes, and then a temple. Also, member work is very effective in the Baltics and we spend very little time on it considering how many baptisms it yields.
Baptisms in the Baltics since 2009
14% found it themselves/came on their own
20% found harvesting (knocking doors)
23% contacting
17% from English class
35% from referrals
The Zone leaders talked to us about internalizing goals and making them SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound) goals. I'm pretty pumped. President Boswell and I are on the same page. We like trying to create as many smiles as possible and think that less active work is important.
After Zone conference we went with the other sisters and got muffins. Poor Madara is pretty homesick. The bus ride home was enjoyable, we had an entertaining conversation with the elders.
On Thursday I found out that beef is nasty when it goes bad. It turned all gray. Yuck! We didn't eat it. Planning was hilarious. Sister Ferrin was tired, so she was in a horizontal position on the couch, not really wanting to do anything, but being a good sport and planning anyway. I ask her, "So what do you want to teach Santa?" "Celibacy." "What? Sister Ferrin? Sister Ferrrriiiinnnn...." She was out cold. We had an evening jam packed with member lessons. We got to talk to Rita about her goals. I am so excited for her! She is twenty two and has decided to go back and finish high school. Look out class of 2014! She also kind of sort of wants to serve a mission. It is great to see the gospel changing her life. We taught Oskars about tithing, he is a trooper as always. Poor Santa was feeling under the weather so she made us chamomile tea and we had cookies. She made us drink two cups and we had a really thought provoking lesson with her about the atonement.
Friday was filled with lots of cooking and working on the less active/lost sheep project.
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