Monday, November 28, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Week 40
21 Nov. 2011
So, in random news, Masa Madara Zommerovska (member from Liepaja) just got her mission call to the Temple Square Mission. She reports to the MTC the end of March 2012. You will all have to go visit!
Happy Thanksgiving! Mosiah 2:19-22
Monday was Sister Wilson's birthday and we had a fun time celebrating with Sintija and the Elders at the Rock Cafe. I played billiards against Elder Davidson and I lost, but not too badly! Sister Wilson got a gorgeous ring with lots of flowers and vines on it from Maris the ringman. We had a miracle Monday Night! We were able to meet with Vera and her daughter, Diana. When we got there Vera was having Diana's friend read the Liahona magazine about The Book of Mormon. Vera then asked us to explain what we did as missionaries to this friend. When we got to The Book of Mormon Vera took over and started to show her the pictures. [Pointing to Joseph Smith] "See, this is a prophet.." It doesn't get much better than that! Sadly, Vera believes it all but doesn't see the need to get baptized again since she feels that faith is enough. She's going to be a member eventually; she is trying so hard to find truth.
On Tuesday I got to roleplay with our Russian-speaking Elder Palmer. He is picking up Latvian quickly, he did the whole roleplay in Latvian. We borrowed a guitar to practice for the talent show and while tuning it we broke a string...gulp! We bought new ones after we had Thor's bread and NY ziti for a late birthday lunch. Sister Wilson loves dad's artesian bread. We met with Guna in the evening and taught her about church attendance and invited her to come. She seems a lot more open to the idea now!
We got to have a special District Meeting on planning with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday. I liked the change of mindset they are trying to instill. Instead of knocking you are finding X amount of lessons doing activity Y. Cute Santa Dike gave Sister Wilson chocolate and a flower for her birthday. Oh how I love Santa, never a dull moment. And cute Oskars (apparently everything is cute this week), he is opening up so much. I am sad that we won't have to teach him retention anymore after this month.
We taught investigator Santa about the word of wisdom on Thursday. The talent show was on Thursday and Sister Wilson got asked to sing "I love you like a love song" by Selina Gomez with Santa. We took the other option which was "Mistletoe" by Justin Beiber. In the end, both Santa and Sister Wilson sang solos. I played "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay on the guitar...not my best performance, but I didn't practice since we broke the guitar! My favorite talent was the primary doing the "I Don't wanna be a chicken I don't wanna be a duck" song in Russian. As missionaries we had a tie tying race (sisters won), sang "I Need Thee Every Hour" which went well, and "Hallelujah" which did not go well. It is the Hallelujah from Shrek. The Branch President asked us to sing it because he thought it was a church song. It was sooo awful. We had no accompaniment and were laughing at the lyrics.
Happy Independence day Latvia! We are the same age...weird. We had a weird lesson with the recently found member, Dzintra. I'm still confused. For Elder Palmer's half birthday we gave him half a card, half a candy bar, and half a cup cake with half a candle. We thought we were pretty funny. Ieva turned six and we went to her birthday party. Playing charades was hilarious...carrots, lamps, snails, oh boy! On the way back we saw some of the fireworks...I'm glad our Independence Day is in July...so much more romantic and fun to celebrate. After Skaidra (member) showed us her fun remodeled tropic paradise bedroom we had a great lesson with her on priorities. She is quitting her job at the end of the year!
On Saturday we found out that Maragrita is in Ireland and she didn't say goodbye. God bless her and keep her safe, that girl will need it. I guess she is planning on staying for a year. We had an awesome lesson with some of the Beldavi boys. Elvis really likes the scriptures and we had fun coloring with Raivo and Lauris.
We picked them up for church on Sunday and had a good sacrament meeting. Liga came to church again, hurray! I helped in Primary for a little bit. Sister Wilson and I have very different crowd control styles, so it was interesting. I'm marrying someone with the same parenting style views! Anywho, I was able to talk to a great lady on the tram Sunday night...she was going home from visiting her son's grave so I got to testify about the Plan of Salvation and she had lots of questions about our church. Maybe she will come one day. :)
The church is true, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. There is so much to be grateful for!
Masa Lindstroma
So, in random news, Masa Madara Zommerovska (member from Liepaja) just got her mission call to the Temple Square Mission. She reports to the MTC the end of March 2012. You will all have to go visit!
Happy Thanksgiving! Mosiah 2:19-22
Monday was Sister Wilson's birthday and we had a fun time celebrating with Sintija and the Elders at the Rock Cafe. I played billiards against Elder Davidson and I lost, but not too badly! Sister Wilson got a gorgeous ring with lots of flowers and vines on it from Maris the ringman. We had a miracle Monday Night! We were able to meet with Vera and her daughter, Diana. When we got there Vera was having Diana's friend read the Liahona magazine about The Book of Mormon. Vera then asked us to explain what we did as missionaries to this friend. When we got to The Book of Mormon Vera took over and started to show her the pictures. [Pointing to Joseph Smith] "See, this is a prophet.." It doesn't get much better than that! Sadly, Vera believes it all but doesn't see the need to get baptized again since she feels that faith is enough. She's going to be a member eventually; she is trying so hard to find truth.
On Tuesday I got to roleplay with our Russian-speaking Elder Palmer. He is picking up Latvian quickly, he did the whole roleplay in Latvian. We borrowed a guitar to practice for the talent show and while tuning it we broke a string...gulp! We bought new ones after we had Thor's bread and NY ziti for a late birthday lunch. Sister Wilson loves dad's artesian bread. We met with Guna in the evening and taught her about church attendance and invited her to come. She seems a lot more open to the idea now!
We got to have a special District Meeting on planning with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday. I liked the change of mindset they are trying to instill. Instead of knocking you are finding X amount of lessons doing activity Y. Cute Santa Dike gave Sister Wilson chocolate and a flower for her birthday. Oh how I love Santa, never a dull moment. And cute Oskars (apparently everything is cute this week), he is opening up so much. I am sad that we won't have to teach him retention anymore after this month.
We taught investigator Santa about the word of wisdom on Thursday. The talent show was on Thursday and Sister Wilson got asked to sing "I love you like a love song" by Selina Gomez with Santa. We took the other option which was "Mistletoe" by Justin Beiber. In the end, both Santa and Sister Wilson sang solos. I played "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay on the guitar...not my best performance, but I didn't practice since we broke the guitar! My favorite talent was the primary doing the "I Don't wanna be a chicken I don't wanna be a duck" song in Russian. As missionaries we had a tie tying race (sisters won), sang "I Need Thee Every Hour" which went well, and "Hallelujah" which did not go well. It is the Hallelujah from Shrek. The Branch President asked us to sing it because he thought it was a church song. It was sooo awful. We had no accompaniment and were laughing at the lyrics.
Happy Independence day Latvia! We are the same age...weird. We had a weird lesson with the recently found member, Dzintra. I'm still confused. For Elder Palmer's half birthday we gave him half a card, half a candy bar, and half a cup cake with half a candle. We thought we were pretty funny. Ieva turned six and we went to her birthday party. Playing charades was hilarious...carrots, lamps, snails, oh boy! On the way back we saw some of the fireworks...I'm glad our Independence Day is in July...so much more romantic and fun to celebrate. After Skaidra (member) showed us her fun remodeled tropic paradise bedroom we had a great lesson with her on priorities. She is quitting her job at the end of the year!
On Saturday we found out that Maragrita is in Ireland and she didn't say goodbye. God bless her and keep her safe, that girl will need it. I guess she is planning on staying for a year. We had an awesome lesson with some of the Beldavi boys. Elvis really likes the scriptures and we had fun coloring with Raivo and Lauris.
We picked them up for church on Sunday and had a good sacrament meeting. Liga came to church again, hurray! I helped in Primary for a little bit. Sister Wilson and I have very different crowd control styles, so it was interesting. I'm marrying someone with the same parenting style views! Anywho, I was able to talk to a great lady on the tram Sunday night...she was going home from visiting her son's grave so I got to testify about the Plan of Salvation and she had lots of questions about our church. Maybe she will come one day. :)
The church is true, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. There is so much to be grateful for!
Masa Lindstroma
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Week 39
Nov. 14, 2011
We had a fun preparation day last Monday. I bought a new pillow and I am sleeping so much better. Now we just need to kill the mice in the walls! We were going to go biking but it was cold. And Elder Palmer has a phobia of bikes. Instead we had lunch together and then played Texas Hold'em. I almost won! If the elders would have done a better job explaining what cards win, I would have had all the mini-Monopoly money. We had Latvian class with Marika in the evening. She told stories, which was fun.
On Tuesday we ate some of "Thor's Thundercrisp" (throw "Thor" in front of anything and it is a hit) during sister exchanges. This is a new thing. After our district meeting on our purpose as missionaries we got to pick the elders' brains for ideas and get to "vent" (while your companion is still there...don't know how that works) since we never get to have exchanges. We found out that we aren't having fun! Neither of us could answer that we were, so they encouraged us to make missionary work fun. We went to see if that Russian mother whose husband died was home; she wasn't. We therefore went contacting by the ocean. I really need to learn Russian, every single person we contacted was Russian until the end. I started up a conversation with these two nice old ladies that were sitting by the fountain of the dead silent park. One of them invited us home for coffee. We got herbal tea instead :). She started crying on the walk to her house because her husband died and she wants to know if she'll see him again. We get into her home and she has OLD missionary pamphlets and such. She is looking for what happens. She had this book, Dievs nekad nokave... "God is Never Late." I love that title! Anywho, we didn't get home for lunch until 5pm! And we had panini sandwiches, yum! It has been a long time since I had a sandwich, it made me happy. It was not as entertaining as Sister Wilson's night prayer. "I don't know if I'm allowed, but will you please help the mice to die so that we can sleep?" I had a really hard time not laughing the rest of the prayer.
Wednesday morning I had a great study for Santa Dike. I read over the Forget-Me-Not talk by Pres. Uchtdorf because that is what we were going to go over with her. I really liked the "forget not the why of the gospel." I was thinking about what the elders said about having fun. I think I have gotten too caught up in the what and how that I forgot the why. Sister W. and I finally decided to call President Boswell and ask him about having fun because we were just still stumped by it and mostly he advised us to be happy...though he said he knew we were happy. Choose happiness and find the funny things and smile. We made aprons out of pillowcases! That was fun and they are so nice to have. We had a lesson with Inga red hair, like flaming red who is a friend of a member. She is super nice, as is her cute 2-year-old Pavils. He went around chasing the cat and was a gentleman. He got me a chair to sit on and gave me an apple, it was very nice. Inga loves the church and knows that God blesses her. She definitely will be a member...eventually. Sintija drew a picture of Sister Wilson...she loves it! We were out walking around 8pm and admiring a very nice house. This woman popped out onto her roof in her wardrobe and started yelling at us...she thought we were going to graffiti her fence. Apparently sister missionaries look sketchy?? It was pretty funny though.
On Thursday I found out that my best friend Amber's mother died. This was super sad, especially because Amber is on a mission and she has two younger siblings. It definitely was a slap in the face in the way of a big reminder of the "why" of the gospel. It makes talking to people about the Plan of Salvation so different. I am so glad we have the gospel and that the Johnson family was sealed in the temple. Mamma J is just on vacation now in paradise for a while. She was an amazing mother and woman and I will miss her. She always wanted to hang out with me and Amber- come running or go to the movies.
We were taking a bus up to teach Vesma, a woman from our English class and we saw the crazy angel wing man while we were waiting for the bus. Today he was wearing a Ben Franklin wig and green. While he was talking to us I felt like I should call Liga, the lady Sister Ferrin and I found and helped baptize who has been sick. She answered her phone and said she was coming to church! Vesma is thinking about the baptismal commitment we gave her and we had to run, quite literally from her house to catch the bus. I totally almost peed my tights, because I needed to go to the ladies room several hours before. Luckily I didn't, but I did misplace my bus ticket and the controllers came! Duhn duhn duhn! In an effort to save me from a fine, Sister Wilson grabbed another bus ticket to punch it and got a fine for doing so. At that moment I found my bus ticket. Sintija helped us teach Guna (Dace Beldava's sister who comes to English) about prayer. Sintija told Guna that there was an elephant in her chair...Guna was very disturbed and confused. It was an animal cracker.
11/11/11 was a party! Mostly we ate stick things that looked like "1s" and said "Happy 11/11/11!" While contacting I found a potato spiraled out on a skewer that was fried in oil...mmm. Almost better than the homemade corndogs we made. It was quite the endeavor, making corn dogs. I prefer buying them frozen. I think I am officially the unofficial RS President. I have been invited by the District Relief Society to join in on Skype meetings about Relief Society...woot! Should be lots of fun. I don't mind. Some missionaries hate when they aren't doing "missionary work" in their small definitions of tracting and knocking. Sister Scerbinini is sick so she asked us to help the YM/YW make lasagna. I do not have that skill so it was good that we had Sister Wilson there. The youth were all tired and falling asleep, unlike little Ieva who is almost 6 years old. She insisted that I dance with her and tried to get everyone to come and be spectators. On Friday we were able to meet with Dzintra, an inactive that wasn't even on the branch list. She is nice and has a cute red dog named Muša (or Bear in Russian). She really liked us since the dog liked us. The last sister missionaries offended her so it is a good thing that she sees us as "God's children." She loves the Bible but remembered a lot about the Restoration, which is great.
Saturday was a fun day teaching English as always. We have the cutest 7-year-old who comes with her grandparents. She lived in England for a few years and only knows Russian so it helps her with her Latvian. She speaks better than the rest of the class, hands down. While I was working on some Relief Society stuff Sister Wilson watercolored...she found some paint and boy is she good!
Sunday rocked. We had 41 people at church, hurray! Dzintra, the inactive did NOT want to come when we called her in the morning, but we went to pick up the Beldavi boys which was so fun. There is nothing like walking with 2 teenagers holding their little brothers' hands going to church. By the time we got to the church we were quite the parade, Sintija and Eriks joined us on the way and we had a really spirit-filled sacrament meeting. Liga came which just brightened my day. We had a hilarious Branch Council meeting. Presidents was at home with Sarra because she is sick, so he joined us on Skype. Rihards was just being a goofball pretending to eat the microphone among other things. We had a break the fast with the elders, Rihards, and his friend Artis who was visiting from England with his cute little girl Amber. Everyone loved French Toast a la Munns along with scrambled eggs. We went harvesting in the evening. It sure is dark now! We met a lady who wasn't very nice at first but I was being bold and by the end we were friends with her, her cat, and she invited us back for tea. :)
The church is true. I know that we have a Savior who will redeem all mankind. The gospel is real. Don't forget the why of life!
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
We had a fun preparation day last Monday. I bought a new pillow and I am sleeping so much better. Now we just need to kill the mice in the walls! We were going to go biking but it was cold. And Elder Palmer has a phobia of bikes. Instead we had lunch together and then played Texas Hold'em. I almost won! If the elders would have done a better job explaining what cards win, I would have had all the mini-Monopoly money. We had Latvian class with Marika in the evening. She told stories, which was fun.
On Tuesday we ate some of "Thor's Thundercrisp" (throw "Thor" in front of anything and it is a hit) during sister exchanges. This is a new thing. After our district meeting on our purpose as missionaries we got to pick the elders' brains for ideas and get to "vent" (while your companion is still there...don't know how that works) since we never get to have exchanges. We found out that we aren't having fun! Neither of us could answer that we were, so they encouraged us to make missionary work fun. We went to see if that Russian mother whose husband died was home; she wasn't. We therefore went contacting by the ocean. I really need to learn Russian, every single person we contacted was Russian until the end. I started up a conversation with these two nice old ladies that were sitting by the fountain of the dead silent park. One of them invited us home for coffee. We got herbal tea instead :). She started crying on the walk to her house because her husband died and she wants to know if she'll see him again. We get into her home and she has OLD missionary pamphlets and such. She is looking for what happens. She had this book, Dievs nekad nokave... "God is Never Late." I love that title! Anywho, we didn't get home for lunch until 5pm! And we had panini sandwiches, yum! It has been a long time since I had a sandwich, it made me happy. It was not as entertaining as Sister Wilson's night prayer. "I don't know if I'm allowed, but will you please help the mice to die so that we can sleep?" I had a really hard time not laughing the rest of the prayer.
Wednesday morning I had a great study for Santa Dike. I read over the Forget-Me-Not talk by Pres. Uchtdorf because that is what we were going to go over with her. I really liked the "forget not the why of the gospel." I was thinking about what the elders said about having fun. I think I have gotten too caught up in the what and how that I forgot the why. Sister W. and I finally decided to call President Boswell and ask him about having fun because we were just still stumped by it and mostly he advised us to be happy...though he said he knew we were happy. Choose happiness and find the funny things and smile. We made aprons out of pillowcases! That was fun and they are so nice to have. We had a lesson with Inga red hair, like flaming red who is a friend of a member. She is super nice, as is her cute 2-year-old Pavils. He went around chasing the cat and was a gentleman. He got me a chair to sit on and gave me an apple, it was very nice. Inga loves the church and knows that God blesses her. She definitely will be a member...eventually. Sintija drew a picture of Sister Wilson...she loves it! We were out walking around 8pm and admiring a very nice house. This woman popped out onto her roof in her wardrobe and started yelling at us...she thought we were going to graffiti her fence. Apparently sister missionaries look sketchy?? It was pretty funny though.
On Thursday I found out that my best friend Amber's mother died. This was super sad, especially because Amber is on a mission and she has two younger siblings. It definitely was a slap in the face in the way of a big reminder of the "why" of the gospel. It makes talking to people about the Plan of Salvation so different. I am so glad we have the gospel and that the Johnson family was sealed in the temple. Mamma J is just on vacation now in paradise for a while. She was an amazing mother and woman and I will miss her. She always wanted to hang out with me and Amber- come running or go to the movies.
We were taking a bus up to teach Vesma, a woman from our English class and we saw the crazy angel wing man while we were waiting for the bus. Today he was wearing a Ben Franklin wig and green. While he was talking to us I felt like I should call Liga, the lady Sister Ferrin and I found and helped baptize who has been sick. She answered her phone and said she was coming to church! Vesma is thinking about the baptismal commitment we gave her and we had to run, quite literally from her house to catch the bus. I totally almost peed my tights, because I needed to go to the ladies room several hours before. Luckily I didn't, but I did misplace my bus ticket and the controllers came! Duhn duhn duhn! In an effort to save me from a fine, Sister Wilson grabbed another bus ticket to punch it and got a fine for doing so. At that moment I found my bus ticket. Sintija helped us teach Guna (Dace Beldava's sister who comes to English) about prayer. Sintija told Guna that there was an elephant in her chair...Guna was very disturbed and confused. It was an animal cracker.
11/11/11 was a party! Mostly we ate stick things that looked like "1s" and said "Happy 11/11/11!" While contacting I found a potato spiraled out on a skewer that was fried in oil...mmm. Almost better than the homemade corndogs we made. It was quite the endeavor, making corn dogs. I prefer buying them frozen. I think I am officially the unofficial RS President. I have been invited by the District Relief Society to join in on Skype meetings about Relief Society...woot! Should be lots of fun. I don't mind. Some missionaries hate when they aren't doing "missionary work" in their small definitions of tracting and knocking. Sister Scerbinini is sick so she asked us to help the YM/YW make lasagna. I do not have that skill so it was good that we had Sister Wilson there. The youth were all tired and falling asleep, unlike little Ieva who is almost 6 years old. She insisted that I dance with her and tried to get everyone to come and be spectators. On Friday we were able to meet with Dzintra, an inactive that wasn't even on the branch list. She is nice and has a cute red dog named Muša (or Bear in Russian). She really liked us since the dog liked us. The last sister missionaries offended her so it is a good thing that she sees us as "God's children." She loves the Bible but remembered a lot about the Restoration, which is great.
Saturday was a fun day teaching English as always. We have the cutest 7-year-old who comes with her grandparents. She lived in England for a few years and only knows Russian so it helps her with her Latvian. She speaks better than the rest of the class, hands down. While I was working on some Relief Society stuff Sister Wilson watercolored...she found some paint and boy is she good!
Sunday rocked. We had 41 people at church, hurray! Dzintra, the inactive did NOT want to come when we called her in the morning, but we went to pick up the Beldavi boys which was so fun. There is nothing like walking with 2 teenagers holding their little brothers' hands going to church. By the time we got to the church we were quite the parade, Sintija and Eriks joined us on the way and we had a really spirit-filled sacrament meeting. Liga came which just brightened my day. We had a hilarious Branch Council meeting. Presidents was at home with Sarra because she is sick, so he joined us on Skype. Rihards was just being a goofball pretending to eat the microphone among other things. We had a break the fast with the elders, Rihards, and his friend Artis who was visiting from England with his cute little girl Amber. Everyone loved French Toast a la Munns along with scrambled eggs. We went harvesting in the evening. It sure is dark now! We met a lady who wasn't very nice at first but I was being bold and by the end we were friends with her, her cat, and she invited us back for tea. :)
The church is true. I know that we have a Savior who will redeem all mankind. The gospel is real. Don't forget the why of life!
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Week 38
7 Nov 2011
Well, life is unpredictable. Sister Wilson and I are still together in Liepaja. If life will be predictable I will be staying here the rest of my mission and training twice in Liepaja. It just depends if President Boswell wants to throw me under the bus and have me be lost in Riga all the time. I definitely wasn't expecting it. He is having all three sisters who are leaving this transfer together in a tri-panionship. Weird. In other random news, Margarita is not going to Ireland and we now have heating on in the house. It makes life so much more pleasant to be warm. Now we just need to get rid of the mice. I always tell God, if one lands on me while I am sleeping I am going home to America. And so far there haven't been any mice in my bed, so that is good. I am sorry if any of you have written me and I haven't written back...it means that I did not get your letter. There seems to be a mail monster between America and Latvia.
Monday was a good day for us. Poor Elder Schmidt did NOT have a good day. His older brother is engaged to his ex-girlfriend person AND he broke the refridgerator while he was defrosting it and has to buy a new one. Fridges are very expensive. We ate at Doka Pizza and boy do they have yummy fries. To celebrate Halloween Sister Wilson and I made carmel apples (sooooo good!), pumpkin cookies, as well as carved a pumpkin...into a mushroom. Sister W. thought this was hilarious.
Tuesday night we got the shocking call that we are staying together. I wasn't expecting this, so we will most likely have 3 together in Liepaja, if President B. doesn't pull anything else crazy. We had a lesson from Ether 6 which Oskars loved. He can work now and is looking for a job...hurray! We did some contacting and harvesting as well, as missionaries do. We knocked into this really awesome Russian lady that had her husband pass away recently. She had two cute boys, the older one translated her Russian into English. They had us in for tea and showed us their cat. They are the cutest family and they invited us back. Hopefully we will be able to teach them!
Wednesday contacting I suppose we were looking good. A man told us we were the prettiest girls in the world. He was also drunk at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Anywho, these beautiful girls made Thor's no-knead bread and ate it with pumpkin soup (from the carved pumpkin doner). We had a nice lesson with Zelma. She didn't overfeed us today (she actually made us carrot juice) and she is a great member missionary sharing the gospel. She is doing well, although still sad taht her family isn't open to the gospel.
Thursday we went and shoved newspaper into Santa the older's windows. Aside from the cat attacks it was a lot of fun. Crocodiles, the cat, was not excited about us cleaning up more and moving boxes and she got a good chunk o' Sister Wilson. She hates cats. We also got to take Riksi, the dog out for a walk to practice pet sitting. Santa is getting surgery this month and she asked us to take the dog out for walks. Santa and I just laughed as Sister Wilson tried to control the dog. I was under the weather on Thursday so I got a blessing. It was really interesting, it talked about the people desperately needing me here in Liepaja and my trials are to give me perspective. Elder Palmer was a great mouthpiece for the Lord, and I will be fine and better. The elders then stuck around for a mini-meeting in our apartment. They all seem so happy. Elder Davidson (3rd transfer, from Texas) is very mature and speaks very well. He is the first to undergo the new MTC training, and I think it works well. He is a great missionary already. We had a pretty fun night. Before then, since I got banished to home by Sister Boswell we watched this new Russian film about how to make a happy family and ate popcorn. It was the weirdest non-church church film I have ever seen. It had English subtitles that made it totally worth it.
Friday for exercise we went to the beach. It was really pretty..foggy and calm. I was pretty hyper during planning which was just ridiculous. I forgot about my talent for making up new lyrics to songs. Sister Wilson thinks I should be sick more often. Anywho, we had church cleaning with the Elders and Margarita and Sandijs. On our way out we saw the trolls and Martins (Ieva and Olga). They seemed like they were up to no good. Sad day.
Saturday we taught English as always and had a good time. We have lots of promising people coming from our English class. We also had District Conference, which was excellent. President Boswell told us to stop living in the past and complaining and just embrace the future. The prophet Moses was better than the Pharaoh but people still complained. It is a commandment for us to be happy and we need to choose happiness. Elder Senkanes shared about when he translated the Book of Mormon into Latvian. He said he did it for two hours a day and the Lord helped him to do everything else he needed to. When he finished he thought he'd have those two hours, but they just disappeared! We need to put the important things first.
Sunday's session was from President Uchtdorf, Elder Oaks, and Sister Thomspon broadcast. I almost had to be Sister Thompson in Latvian. I convinced Sintija to do it instead so I was able to enjoy all the great talks instead of stress about translating. They all did really good and told the East Area that they need to be more faithful, come to church, pay tithing, etc. We had a great lesson with the Beldavi in the evening, Elvis was so excited to learn about the Title of Liberty. We then made our own Title of Liberty, which everyone thought was super great. We also met with Rita and started to teach her from chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel- Christlike Attributes.
The church is true, I love you all. We are so blessed by the Lord. We are here on this beautiful earth and we have a Saviour. He lives and He lives for all man-kind.
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
Read Alma 38! It is one of my new favorites.
Well, life is unpredictable. Sister Wilson and I are still together in Liepaja. If life will be predictable I will be staying here the rest of my mission and training twice in Liepaja. It just depends if President Boswell wants to throw me under the bus and have me be lost in Riga all the time. I definitely wasn't expecting it. He is having all three sisters who are leaving this transfer together in a tri-panionship. Weird. In other random news, Margarita is not going to Ireland and we now have heating on in the house. It makes life so much more pleasant to be warm. Now we just need to get rid of the mice. I always tell God, if one lands on me while I am sleeping I am going home to America. And so far there haven't been any mice in my bed, so that is good. I am sorry if any of you have written me and I haven't written back...it means that I did not get your letter. There seems to be a mail monster between America and Latvia.
Monday was a good day for us. Poor Elder Schmidt did NOT have a good day. His older brother is engaged to his ex-girlfriend person AND he broke the refridgerator while he was defrosting it and has to buy a new one. Fridges are very expensive. We ate at Doka Pizza and boy do they have yummy fries. To celebrate Halloween Sister Wilson and I made carmel apples (sooooo good!), pumpkin cookies, as well as carved a pumpkin...into a mushroom. Sister W. thought this was hilarious.
Tuesday night we got the shocking call that we are staying together. I wasn't expecting this, so we will most likely have 3 together in Liepaja, if President B. doesn't pull anything else crazy. We had a lesson from Ether 6 which Oskars loved. He can work now and is looking for a job...hurray! We did some contacting and harvesting as well, as missionaries do. We knocked into this really awesome Russian lady that had her husband pass away recently. She had two cute boys, the older one translated her Russian into English. They had us in for tea and showed us their cat. They are the cutest family and they invited us back. Hopefully we will be able to teach them!
Wednesday contacting I suppose we were looking good. A man told us we were the prettiest girls in the world. He was also drunk at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Anywho, these beautiful girls made Thor's no-knead bread and ate it with pumpkin soup (from the carved pumpkin doner). We had a nice lesson with Zelma. She didn't overfeed us today (she actually made us carrot juice) and she is a great member missionary sharing the gospel. She is doing well, although still sad taht her family isn't open to the gospel.
Thursday we went and shoved newspaper into Santa the older's windows. Aside from the cat attacks it was a lot of fun. Crocodiles, the cat, was not excited about us cleaning up more and moving boxes and she got a good chunk o' Sister Wilson. She hates cats. We also got to take Riksi, the dog out for a walk to practice pet sitting. Santa is getting surgery this month and she asked us to take the dog out for walks. Santa and I just laughed as Sister Wilson tried to control the dog. I was under the weather on Thursday so I got a blessing. It was really interesting, it talked about the people desperately needing me here in Liepaja and my trials are to give me perspective. Elder Palmer was a great mouthpiece for the Lord, and I will be fine and better. The elders then stuck around for a mini-meeting in our apartment. They all seem so happy. Elder Davidson (3rd transfer, from Texas) is very mature and speaks very well. He is the first to undergo the new MTC training, and I think it works well. He is a great missionary already. We had a pretty fun night. Before then, since I got banished to home by Sister Boswell we watched this new Russian film about how to make a happy family and ate popcorn. It was the weirdest non-church church film I have ever seen. It had English subtitles that made it totally worth it.
Friday for exercise we went to the beach. It was really pretty..foggy and calm. I was pretty hyper during planning which was just ridiculous. I forgot about my talent for making up new lyrics to songs. Sister Wilson thinks I should be sick more often. Anywho, we had church cleaning with the Elders and Margarita and Sandijs. On our way out we saw the trolls and Martins (Ieva and Olga). They seemed like they were up to no good. Sad day.
Saturday we taught English as always and had a good time. We have lots of promising people coming from our English class. We also had District Conference, which was excellent. President Boswell told us to stop living in the past and complaining and just embrace the future. The prophet Moses was better than the Pharaoh but people still complained. It is a commandment for us to be happy and we need to choose happiness. Elder Senkanes shared about when he translated the Book of Mormon into Latvian. He said he did it for two hours a day and the Lord helped him to do everything else he needed to. When he finished he thought he'd have those two hours, but they just disappeared! We need to put the important things first.
Sunday's session was from President Uchtdorf, Elder Oaks, and Sister Thomspon broadcast. I almost had to be Sister Thompson in Latvian. I convinced Sintija to do it instead so I was able to enjoy all the great talks instead of stress about translating. They all did really good and told the East Area that they need to be more faithful, come to church, pay tithing, etc. We had a great lesson with the Beldavi in the evening, Elvis was so excited to learn about the Title of Liberty. We then made our own Title of Liberty, which everyone thought was super great. We also met with Rita and started to teach her from chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel- Christlike Attributes.
The church is true, I love you all. We are so blessed by the Lord. We are here on this beautiful earth and we have a Saviour. He lives and He lives for all man-kind.
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
Read Alma 38! It is one of my new favorites.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Week 37
Another week has gone by. This has been a long transfer for me. And it has been long...7 weeks! We are having transfers on Thursday and we still don't know what is happening. The weather has been so gorgeous as of late. The heating is coming on November 1st, there is still a mouse in the house, but God is still smiling upon us. The weather has been unseasonably dry and warm. I am grateful for that as well as all my other many blessings.
Happy Halloween! Yes they do celebrate Halloween here. We actually saw some trick-or-treaters Sunday night (we still don't know why). It definitely isn't quite as big as in America (no decorations, no special candy to buy, etc.) Happy name day today Grandma Nadine!
On Monday I got to try frikadella soup. Frikadella soup is very popular in Latvia and I had it along with some garlic and cheese bread (also very Latvian and unhealthy) at the 3 Kungs cafe with the elders. The sun was shining so we even got some ice cream after. You know you are in Latvia when you have on a coat and gloves, but you are still eating an ice cream cone outside because it is sunny. We found out today that our Margarita is heading off to Ireland to be a nanny there. We are going to miss her dearly. We met with long-time member Marika Monday evening. Along with helping us with the language she informed us that we need to keep our feet warm otherwise we will get sick (among other tidbits from Latvian culture).
We've been able to do a lot of contacting this week. On Tuesday I contacted the kindest old man from Lithuania. He's been living in Latvia for several years now and he was so fun to talk to. Our District Meeting was on how to be happy. We started off by discussing what our definition of happiness is, what makes us happy, etc. It is an interesting exercise, I recommend trying it. We then read in 2 Nephi 5 about things that help us to "live after the manner of happiness." The highlight of the day was definitely visiting with Guna (our investigator who is a member's sister). We ended up taking Sintija along because we saw her on the way to the meeting. Sintija was a great help and we now know that Guna still doesn't believe the whole authority business.
I have just been on a French kick. I found something that was in the similitude of a "pain au chocolat" at the tirgus (market) on Wednesday. I was fairly impressed. We were late to service at Rihard's because we helped President Scerbinins show the church to a friend visiting from the middle of nowhere, Latvia. I found out at service that I do not remove wallpaper "smuki" (cute) enough. Sister Wilson was informed by Rihards that you shouldn't stand on chairs with shoes on. We just both laughed because we both would have at our respective dwellings in America. Anywho, we made some kicking taco soup. If you want to know what that extra "kick" is, try adding some ginger root to your taco soup. We had a lunch meeting with a nice 63 year old, Karmena. She mostly just likes talking to us young folks and seeing what we think. It was quite the game to see how to sneak in the gospel without her knowing. She fed us tea, honey (separate from the tea), boiled potatoes, and coleslaw. It was all very nice. As always, God helped to expand our stomachs because it was right after our taco soup. We visiting cute old member Ausma when her growly "sveiki" (hey!). Her eye operation went well and she was glad to see us, as was her dancing dog (yes, the dog dances on its two hind legs).
On Thursday we had weekly planning and our weekly meeting with Santa Dike (recent convert). We challenged her to read The Book of Mormon by the end of the year and she is taking the challenge (10 pages a day, I dare you all to do it!). We had a few meetings not show up so we went harvesting/knocking/bothering people in their homes/whatever you prefer to call it. Naturally the first door that opened was also the last. This 89 year old half deaf lady just let us on in and yelled our ears off. She was half deaf and could only understand Sister Wilson because she was sitting closer to her, so I sat back and enjoyed the show. She was a super nice old lady, going a little senile, but that is okay. When we were leaving her neighbor, in broken Latvian, told us thank you for visiting her. That really meant a lot (I'm pretty sure he heard all of the conversation through the ceiling, bless his heart).
Friday morning we taught Vineta (inactive 30 year old with 2 kids) about prayer and it was a nice lesson. We invited Vineta to start praying two times a day. We had more perfect weather for contacting. We had a meeting with Guna at the church to watch the Restoration film. Due to people being late and such, we ended up having Oskars and Santa D. in the lesson with Guna. It went really well and they told her essentially that yeah, it sounds crazy, but you've got to pray and eventually you will get it. We had a lesson with Oskars and Santa helped out. Jinkies, she is just so funny. Today she was talking about how she isn't going to the Celestial Kingdom because she doesn't want to get married. She said the closing prayer and asked God to forgive her for not wanting to get married and to help her have that desire. God love her, she is so great! I'm pretty sure we were all chuckling in that prayer. Santa really has the greatest prayers though, because they truly are conversations with God. She is an example to me! We had a pioneer party at the church. Members got to make forts, hunt rabbits, cross daunting waters, etc. It was quite the event!
I was sick on Saturday. Boo, not fun. I mostly wanted to just chop everything off from above my shoulders, but no worries, I am on the mend. We had cleaning and English as usual and our class continues to grow! They just all invite their friends! We made repentance airplanes with the Beldavi family as we celebrated Elvis' name day. Lauris and Raivo thought the airplanes were the greatest things ever. I personally liked the example of how to repent because I got to steal candy from Sister Wilson and eat it. :)
Sunday was a nice block. I taught third hour to the Relief Society, Priesthood, Young Men, and Young Women. I had a LOT of time and with the Lord's help I was able to keep pulling stuff out of thin air and fully taught all 5 steps of the gospel of Jesus Christ along with the difference between immortality and eternal life. Phew! In other random events, someone stole a 20$ box of cookies from the church. After having a nice Sunday dinner of chicken and rice, we called many people who didn't answer and then went out by the lake to knock on doors there. We met some rather nice younger people. Mostly I think Sister Wilson and her big blue eyes enamour them, but anyway, that is that!
The church is true. God lives.
Love you all,
Sister Lindstrom
Happy Halloween! Yes they do celebrate Halloween here. We actually saw some trick-or-treaters Sunday night (we still don't know why). It definitely isn't quite as big as in America (no decorations, no special candy to buy, etc.) Happy name day today Grandma Nadine!
On Monday I got to try frikadella soup. Frikadella soup is very popular in Latvia and I had it along with some garlic and cheese bread (also very Latvian and unhealthy) at the 3 Kungs cafe with the elders. The sun was shining so we even got some ice cream after. You know you are in Latvia when you have on a coat and gloves, but you are still eating an ice cream cone outside because it is sunny. We found out today that our Margarita is heading off to Ireland to be a nanny there. We are going to miss her dearly. We met with long-time member Marika Monday evening. Along with helping us with the language she informed us that we need to keep our feet warm otherwise we will get sick (among other tidbits from Latvian culture).
We've been able to do a lot of contacting this week. On Tuesday I contacted the kindest old man from Lithuania. He's been living in Latvia for several years now and he was so fun to talk to. Our District Meeting was on how to be happy. We started off by discussing what our definition of happiness is, what makes us happy, etc. It is an interesting exercise, I recommend trying it. We then read in 2 Nephi 5 about things that help us to "live after the manner of happiness." The highlight of the day was definitely visiting with Guna (our investigator who is a member's sister). We ended up taking Sintija along because we saw her on the way to the meeting. Sintija was a great help and we now know that Guna still doesn't believe the whole authority business.
I have just been on a French kick. I found something that was in the similitude of a "pain au chocolat" at the tirgus (market) on Wednesday. I was fairly impressed. We were late to service at Rihard's because we helped President Scerbinins show the church to a friend visiting from the middle of nowhere, Latvia. I found out at service that I do not remove wallpaper "smuki" (cute) enough. Sister Wilson was informed by Rihards that you shouldn't stand on chairs with shoes on. We just both laughed because we both would have at our respective dwellings in America. Anywho, we made some kicking taco soup. If you want to know what that extra "kick" is, try adding some ginger root to your taco soup. We had a lunch meeting with a nice 63 year old, Karmena. She mostly just likes talking to us young folks and seeing what we think. It was quite the game to see how to sneak in the gospel without her knowing. She fed us tea, honey (separate from the tea), boiled potatoes, and coleslaw. It was all very nice. As always, God helped to expand our stomachs because it was right after our taco soup. We visiting cute old member Ausma when her growly "sveiki" (hey!). Her eye operation went well and she was glad to see us, as was her dancing dog (yes, the dog dances on its two hind legs).
On Thursday we had weekly planning and our weekly meeting with Santa Dike (recent convert). We challenged her to read The Book of Mormon by the end of the year and she is taking the challenge (10 pages a day, I dare you all to do it!). We had a few meetings not show up so we went harvesting/knocking/bothering people in their homes/whatever you prefer to call it. Naturally the first door that opened was also the last. This 89 year old half deaf lady just let us on in and yelled our ears off. She was half deaf and could only understand Sister Wilson because she was sitting closer to her, so I sat back and enjoyed the show. She was a super nice old lady, going a little senile, but that is okay. When we were leaving her neighbor, in broken Latvian, told us thank you for visiting her. That really meant a lot (I'm pretty sure he heard all of the conversation through the ceiling, bless his heart).
Friday morning we taught Vineta (inactive 30 year old with 2 kids) about prayer and it was a nice lesson. We invited Vineta to start praying two times a day. We had more perfect weather for contacting. We had a meeting with Guna at the church to watch the Restoration film. Due to people being late and such, we ended up having Oskars and Santa D. in the lesson with Guna. It went really well and they told her essentially that yeah, it sounds crazy, but you've got to pray and eventually you will get it. We had a lesson with Oskars and Santa helped out. Jinkies, she is just so funny. Today she was talking about how she isn't going to the Celestial Kingdom because she doesn't want to get married. She said the closing prayer and asked God to forgive her for not wanting to get married and to help her have that desire. God love her, she is so great! I'm pretty sure we were all chuckling in that prayer. Santa really has the greatest prayers though, because they truly are conversations with God. She is an example to me! We had a pioneer party at the church. Members got to make forts, hunt rabbits, cross daunting waters, etc. It was quite the event!
I was sick on Saturday. Boo, not fun. I mostly wanted to just chop everything off from above my shoulders, but no worries, I am on the mend. We had cleaning and English as usual and our class continues to grow! They just all invite their friends! We made repentance airplanes with the Beldavi family as we celebrated Elvis' name day. Lauris and Raivo thought the airplanes were the greatest things ever. I personally liked the example of how to repent because I got to steal candy from Sister Wilson and eat it. :)
Sunday was a nice block. I taught third hour to the Relief Society, Priesthood, Young Men, and Young Women. I had a LOT of time and with the Lord's help I was able to keep pulling stuff out of thin air and fully taught all 5 steps of the gospel of Jesus Christ along with the difference between immortality and eternal life. Phew! In other random events, someone stole a 20$ box of cookies from the church. After having a nice Sunday dinner of chicken and rice, we called many people who didn't answer and then went out by the lake to knock on doors there. We met some rather nice younger people. Mostly I think Sister Wilson and her big blue eyes enamour them, but anyway, that is that!
The church is true. God lives.
Love you all,
Sister Lindstrom
Monday, October 24, 2011
Week 36
Hello world.
It is rather nice weather in Liepaja- except for in our house. We have officially hit the sub-60F mark inside. Needless to say we get cold when we are studying and it feels like it is warmer when we are outside.
So last Monday I lost the rubber gasket to the shower..uh oh! We went to a few hardware stores and they didn't have anything that would work. We paused the gasket search to go to Karosta- the war forts. It was the perfect day- not too cold or windy. The lighting was also perfect for all of us amateur photographers and we all had a great time. While searching for sea glass a huge wave came up and got three out of five of us all wet. My running shoes needed a bath anyway though. We came home, I said a little prayer and we were able to disemble the shower to find the gasket to reassemble it!
We had a fun transportation blunder. Just so you all know, the number 3 mikrins (Scooby-doo style van) doesn't go the same was as the number 3 bus. Needless to say we didn't get lost, but were just late to our meeting with Vera (lady from English) and her daughter Diana. They live in Lauma (named for the lingerie factory there). We had a lesson planned for Vera other than the Plan of Salvation, but she kept on bringing up what she read in the pamphlet about it so we taught her an amazingly spirit-filled lesson. She was so excited to be sharing this information with her daughter. After the lesson she showed her the picture we had drawn of the plan. "See," she said, "we want to live here together in the highest kingdom." So good! Sadly, they are in the elders area so we need to pass them off.
So I may not be my mother but her cinnamon rolls still turned out really good. I don't think I am going to make them soon if only because I could eat all of them. The elders also enjoyed having cinnamon twists and thought they were the greatest thing. Elder Alder led a great discussion about desires and how they need to become God's desires for us to be better. We ran some random errands. Later in the day we had a great lesson (thanks to Sister Wilson and her testimony and linking thoughts skills) with Santa Dike (recent convert- the funny one with the dog) about personal revelation. We also had a really good lesson with Oskars (recent convert) about faith from Alma 32. It wasn't your typical Alma 32 though- we focused on the tree and not the seed which made for a really interesting discussion. I recommend studying it.
Wednesday morning we woke up and got on a bus to go to Riga for Zone Conference. The ride was gorgeous. It reminded me a lot of Sweden when I was there. I also got to talk a lot with our token Swede at Zone Conference (he is called to the Baltics Russian speaking). He is a funny one and he just laughed and told me that I look super Swedish and was suprised that I didn't know Swedish. The Boswells did a great job talking about how God takes what you have and will make it enough. We compared ourselves to the miracle with the fishes and loaves- all we have to do is give God all that we have and he will bless and multiply it so that there will be more than enough (there were 12 extra baskets!). Sister Boswell talked about being vessels and that it is okay if we aren't a perfect vessel (see below for the parable she shared). I was able to do practices for the teaching parts of zone conference with Elder Burr and Sister Stout who both came out to the Baltics with me. Elder Burr is doing well- he loves being with Elder Mills and has had a hard mission so far. Sister Stout is doing so great and is crossing her fingers that President Boswell sticks us together in a zebra (aka two different language speaking companions together). They both want me to come up to Riga and play with them next transfer. It was Elder Lynch's birthday...he is finally 19...an official missionary! (We like teasing him)
Margarita showed up at the church in Riga! She was up visiting a friend. When she saw 6'9" Elder Graham it was hilarious. "Wow! He is tall!" And then she hid behind me. We stayed over with the sisters in their new apartment in Center which is very cute and fun. Lots of bright paint colors on the walls. They are all doing well and are all in denial about leaving at the end of next transfer.
Thursday we were able to see Elder Seitz (the funny short Russian elder who stole my boots and wore them in Imanta) when we went to get Sister Wilson's new visa. He is still as funny as ever, telling us about the chocolate museli shortage in Estonia and that we should buy a ton and sell it on the black elder market. We all took a taxi down to the bus station and then we sisters went and found some books, Sister Wilson set off an alarm going INTO a store, and we found the best french-esque bakery. It was really good. I found an almond croissant there that was only second to my first one in Marseille. Needless to say I could have died at that moment and been happy. The bus ride was nothing special and neither was our "day in the life of a missionary activity." It was quite the flop. We did have more members than missionaries though (just barely) so that was good.
On Friday we stopped by Lidija R.'s (the lady Sister Ferrin and I reactivated.). She is still being silly and not letting go of what the Branch President said to her. She knows that the church is true but said she won't come back until there is another American BP. We told her that that is never going to happen again (Liepaja thinks the church government is like a democracy- that you can revolt and kick people out). Anywho, it was really sad to see her place her salvation in jeopardy over one sentence that was spoken. We had a much better lesson with Zenta. Roberts her handicapped grandson stuck his chocolate fingers on Sister Wilson's tights and not mine, so that was always nice that it wasn't me. No, I'm joking, but her lesson did go very well. We won't get to meet with her for a few weeks because they have to go up for testing to see if Roberts needs his legs amputated. We had another weird lesson with Nina (aka the Professor Trewlany lady). We helped her with English and then ATTEMPTED (emphasis on attempt) to teach her. She was telling us that Moses didn't write some of the Bible and she didn't know who Abraham was. Aye aye aye, she was not wanting to listen. We watched the RS broadcast with Marika and Margarita (the only people who showed up). We all really enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a lesson with Margarita about God's love and how we need to take things to His feet and just let them go and forgive ourselves.
We did weekly planning on Saturday before teaching our English class which keeps on growing. Everyone keeps bringing their friends, so I guess that is a big compliment! We cleaned after trying not to offend all our English class by teaching them about the word of wisdom and then went and had a great lesson with Skaidra (a member). She is doing great, as is her super fat cat that attacked Sister Wilson's bag. We had a spirit-filled lesson about the temple and she is thinking about going next spring. She is such a great member, but needs a different job so she can come to church more.
Well we had 25 whole people at church. 7 of those (aka one third) being the Branch Presidency and missionaries. Yikes! Four were investigators, so that was good. We were able to teach investigator Santa S. (the teenager) and her two sisters the restoration for the combined YM/YW/primary Sunday School [that is what I call multitasking]. Rihards helped hold up pictures (thank you first counselor to the Branch President). I taught the lesson in Relief Society again. We went over a very detailed Plan of Salvation and answered their questions (or at least attempted to). My favorite question: "What if we want different parents in heaven? Can we trade? What if ours our bad?" We had a Branch Council meeting, ate the last of the creamy soup we've been eating all week and then we went harvesting. Sister Wilson was telling me scary missionary stories and then at one door we rang the doorbell and this man started screaming (not yelling but screaming). We booked it down all five flights of stairs, confusing greatly a man who was coming into his apartment building. We made it home okay. :) The sky is really pretty here- you can see the stars at night- Venus, Cassiopeia, the big dipper.
That's all the adventures for this week!
The church is true!
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
It is rather nice weather in Liepaja- except for in our house. We have officially hit the sub-60F mark inside. Needless to say we get cold when we are studying and it feels like it is warmer when we are outside.
So last Monday I lost the rubber gasket to the shower..uh oh! We went to a few hardware stores and they didn't have anything that would work. We paused the gasket search to go to Karosta- the war forts. It was the perfect day- not too cold or windy. The lighting was also perfect for all of us amateur photographers and we all had a great time. While searching for sea glass a huge wave came up and got three out of five of us all wet. My running shoes needed a bath anyway though. We came home, I said a little prayer and we were able to disemble the shower to find the gasket to reassemble it!
We had a fun transportation blunder. Just so you all know, the number 3 mikrins (Scooby-doo style van) doesn't go the same was as the number 3 bus. Needless to say we didn't get lost, but were just late to our meeting with Vera (lady from English) and her daughter Diana. They live in Lauma (named for the lingerie factory there). We had a lesson planned for Vera other than the Plan of Salvation, but she kept on bringing up what she read in the pamphlet about it so we taught her an amazingly spirit-filled lesson. She was so excited to be sharing this information with her daughter. After the lesson she showed her the picture we had drawn of the plan. "See," she said, "we want to live here together in the highest kingdom." So good! Sadly, they are in the elders area so we need to pass them off.
So I may not be my mother but her cinnamon rolls still turned out really good. I don't think I am going to make them soon if only because I could eat all of them. The elders also enjoyed having cinnamon twists and thought they were the greatest thing. Elder Alder led a great discussion about desires and how they need to become God's desires for us to be better. We ran some random errands. Later in the day we had a great lesson (thanks to Sister Wilson and her testimony and linking thoughts skills) with Santa Dike (recent convert- the funny one with the dog) about personal revelation. We also had a really good lesson with Oskars (recent convert) about faith from Alma 32. It wasn't your typical Alma 32 though- we focused on the tree and not the seed which made for a really interesting discussion. I recommend studying it.
Wednesday morning we woke up and got on a bus to go to Riga for Zone Conference. The ride was gorgeous. It reminded me a lot of Sweden when I was there. I also got to talk a lot with our token Swede at Zone Conference (he is called to the Baltics Russian speaking). He is a funny one and he just laughed and told me that I look super Swedish and was suprised that I didn't know Swedish. The Boswells did a great job talking about how God takes what you have and will make it enough. We compared ourselves to the miracle with the fishes and loaves- all we have to do is give God all that we have and he will bless and multiply it so that there will be more than enough (there were 12 extra baskets!). Sister Boswell talked about being vessels and that it is okay if we aren't a perfect vessel (see below for the parable she shared). I was able to do practices for the teaching parts of zone conference with Elder Burr and Sister Stout who both came out to the Baltics with me. Elder Burr is doing well- he loves being with Elder Mills and has had a hard mission so far. Sister Stout is doing so great and is crossing her fingers that President Boswell sticks us together in a zebra (aka two different language speaking companions together). They both want me to come up to Riga and play with them next transfer. It was Elder Lynch's birthday...he is finally 19...an official missionary! (We like teasing him)
Margarita showed up at the church in Riga! She was up visiting a friend. When she saw 6'9" Elder Graham it was hilarious. "Wow! He is tall!" And then she hid behind me. We stayed over with the sisters in their new apartment in Center which is very cute and fun. Lots of bright paint colors on the walls. They are all doing well and are all in denial about leaving at the end of next transfer.
Thursday we were able to see Elder Seitz (the funny short Russian elder who stole my boots and wore them in Imanta) when we went to get Sister Wilson's new visa. He is still as funny as ever, telling us about the chocolate museli shortage in Estonia and that we should buy a ton and sell it on the black elder market. We all took a taxi down to the bus station and then we sisters went and found some books, Sister Wilson set off an alarm going INTO a store, and we found the best french-esque bakery. It was really good. I found an almond croissant there that was only second to my first one in Marseille. Needless to say I could have died at that moment and been happy. The bus ride was nothing special and neither was our "day in the life of a missionary activity." It was quite the flop. We did have more members than missionaries though (just barely) so that was good.
On Friday we stopped by Lidija R.'s (the lady Sister Ferrin and I reactivated.). She is still being silly and not letting go of what the Branch President said to her. She knows that the church is true but said she won't come back until there is another American BP. We told her that that is never going to happen again (Liepaja thinks the church government is like a democracy- that you can revolt and kick people out). Anywho, it was really sad to see her place her salvation in jeopardy over one sentence that was spoken. We had a much better lesson with Zenta. Roberts her handicapped grandson stuck his chocolate fingers on Sister Wilson's tights and not mine, so that was always nice that it wasn't me. No, I'm joking, but her lesson did go very well. We won't get to meet with her for a few weeks because they have to go up for testing to see if Roberts needs his legs amputated. We had another weird lesson with Nina (aka the Professor Trewlany lady). We helped her with English and then ATTEMPTED (emphasis on attempt) to teach her. She was telling us that Moses didn't write some of the Bible and she didn't know who Abraham was. Aye aye aye, she was not wanting to listen. We watched the RS broadcast with Marika and Margarita (the only people who showed up). We all really enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a lesson with Margarita about God's love and how we need to take things to His feet and just let them go and forgive ourselves.
We did weekly planning on Saturday before teaching our English class which keeps on growing. Everyone keeps bringing their friends, so I guess that is a big compliment! We cleaned after trying not to offend all our English class by teaching them about the word of wisdom and then went and had a great lesson with Skaidra (a member). She is doing great, as is her super fat cat that attacked Sister Wilson's bag. We had a spirit-filled lesson about the temple and she is thinking about going next spring. She is such a great member, but needs a different job so she can come to church more.
Well we had 25 whole people at church. 7 of those (aka one third) being the Branch Presidency and missionaries. Yikes! Four were investigators, so that was good. We were able to teach investigator Santa S. (the teenager) and her two sisters the restoration for the combined YM/YW/primary Sunday School [that is what I call multitasking]. Rihards helped hold up pictures (thank you first counselor to the Branch President). I taught the lesson in Relief Society again. We went over a very detailed Plan of Salvation and answered their questions (or at least attempted to). My favorite question: "What if we want different parents in heaven? Can we trade? What if ours our bad?" We had a Branch Council meeting, ate the last of the creamy soup we've been eating all week and then we went harvesting. Sister Wilson was telling me scary missionary stories and then at one door we rang the doorbell and this man started screaming (not yelling but screaming). We booked it down all five flights of stairs, confusing greatly a man who was coming into his apartment building. We made it home okay. :) The sky is really pretty here- you can see the stars at night- Venus, Cassiopeia, the big dipper.
That's all the adventures for this week!
The church is true!
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
Monday, October 17, 2011
Week 35
Well, I won't lie, I'm cold. Socialism has its pluses and minuses. Minus is that heating doesn't come on until November. We have been enjoying about 5C weather outside and 16C inside which is cold when you are sitting studying. Luckily we have a microwave and rice bags as well as thermals and blankets. Can't wait for the winter!
Monday was rubbish weather so we couldn't go to Karosta. Instead we had the elders over for leftover soup and bread. Elder Schmidt wanted some of "Thor's thunder crisp" (aka apple crisp) and a double batch so that is what we made; it was HUGE! The elders couldn't eat it all in one day so we had it the next day at district meeting. In the evening we went out knocking in apartment buildings and met the nicest Russian atheist man. He wanted us to come in and talk but 1. we don't speak Russian and 2. not allowed. We got his information for Elder Palmer who called him. He said, "Oh I don't want to talk to you and make you not believe in God but those girls of yours are so great out on the streets."
We had a really great District Meeting this week about charity and love and what that means and how we get it (Elder Alder does a GREAT job teaching) in which he brought up DC 11:20. I liked it compared to Moses 1:39. Our work is to be obedient (DC 11:20). God's work is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39). People will always have their agency and can do what they will. All we can do is be obedient!
After our District Meeting we headed out to Rihard's to stack wood. Being girls they wanted to give us the "easier" job which was totally not easier. Instead of stacking wood in the shed, we were supposed to grab a pile of wood and then haul it up the stairs and stack it in Rihard's hall. And boy did we stack it. And then we ran into the ceiling so we stopped. It was fun and so nice to be working outside like at the farm. The weather was also sunny for this firewood adventure. Afterwards we had a meeting with Presidents and Rihards in which we found out Rihards is engaged! About time! Though it won't be until next July. We are pretty excited for him. We had flying saucers for lunch since we bonded over them last week and then had a lesson with Guna from English (who is the Beldavi's aunt...weird!)
Wednesday we got to watch the first session of General Conference in English. So good! We also had a good lesson with Zenta about baptism and what exactly it is. She had some questions about what if we sin after we are baptized...she is a smart cookie. :) We stopped and said "hi" to Lidija and Ausma. They are both doing fine and we took a muffin to Marika. She came to her door as we were writing a note. We confused her a lot since our meeting with her was scheduled for Friday. We went to a meeting at a non-existent address. The elders always have the most reliable referrals :). We did meet some very nice people along the way though. Santa D. doesn't have cancer and Riksi still has fleas but both are doing well.
Conference was amazing yet again. Talk after talk has been answers to questions (except for the one about having babies...and the chicken drum one) Thursday was a good feeding day at the sister missionaries' apartment. We made pumpkin-carrot soup as well as no knead bread. It was amazing. It made up with the ice berg that we hit that we didn't know existed. One of our older members feels guilty for her son's disability that he may have gotten when he hit his head when he was younger. She feels responsible for not preventing the accident. It was really sad to see her, she has been carrying around this burden for a long time. I cried with her. We were able to see President Uchtdorf's RS talk which was amazing. If you haven't watched it, you should. We made popcorn in a pot (my new favorite snack as of yesterday's practice session) and had a party and watched the Restoration film and then had a testimony meeting after. Aivars Fishmeisters was there and I think his heart is softening slowly. After the party (aka pasakums) we had a lesson with Rita and Sandijs about repentance using the story of the sons of Mosiah. The atonement is real!
On Friday we watched the Priesthood session which was amazing. That is so crazy about senior missionaries! We do love senior missionaries. I'm expecting dad to be off on a mission before I get home. I enjoyed all the talks on missionary work as well. Many speakers spoke to the missionaries. We made banana fajitas for lunch and then had a meeting with Rafaella. She is in her late teens and investigated the church a few years ago. She is thinking she is on the "middle path" of life- not Satan's but not God's path. We were bold and told her that if she wasn't on God's path she was on Satan's and that she needed to decide where she wants to go in life and after this life. We challenged her to pray every day for the peace she had when she was investigating the church and to read Ether 12. It was a good lesson, but not at all what we planned. We had our meeting with Marika and talked for way too long about food. We are officially all bonded now in our love for cooking and Marika came to sacrament meeting, so that was good.
On Saturday another session of GC. Quote of the week: "Oh look! The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has matching pink snuggies!" Elder Palmer is quite the comic. Sunday night when we watched conference he was speaking instead of singing the closing hymn is this old person/Gollum from Lord of the Rings/just really funny voice. Anywho, we cleaned the church as usual and had a very large English class again. We had a leftover fiesta and then went to the beach to see the end of the sunset. It was so gorgeous and it wasn't windy which made it even that more enjoyable. We also had time to search for past church members. None of them lived at their old addresses, but everyone was very kind and helpful, especially with finding buildings. This one man was stopped by a woman who only spoke Russian who was trying to help us. He then looked around, called his wife, and told several other people and called after us several times to redirect us
Sunday was a miracle Sunday. I fasted for Oskars who is having Word of Wisdom problems and felt a lot better about it (I cried about that one too...stupid Satan is just getting everyone). He is going to kick the habit again. Few of the "regulars" were there, but there were so many inactives that haven't been in who knows how long. They all new each other and it was exciting to see them all there. They enjoyed Elder Palmer's great talk about his conversion as well as our impromptu missionary musical number. Ruta G. taught a great lesson about service in Sunday School and I taught about the restoration in Relief Society. Sister Wilson is now basically the Primary President. We are just going to rule the whole church down in Liepaja :). Not really, but it is a blessing to be able to help and use our talents.
Create a great week. Enjoy the weather and being able to control your heating in your homes!
Loves,
Sister Lindstrom
Monday was rubbish weather so we couldn't go to Karosta. Instead we had the elders over for leftover soup and bread. Elder Schmidt wanted some of "Thor's thunder crisp" (aka apple crisp) and a double batch so that is what we made; it was HUGE! The elders couldn't eat it all in one day so we had it the next day at district meeting. In the evening we went out knocking in apartment buildings and met the nicest Russian atheist man. He wanted us to come in and talk but 1. we don't speak Russian and 2. not allowed. We got his information for Elder Palmer who called him. He said, "Oh I don't want to talk to you and make you not believe in God but those girls of yours are so great out on the streets."
We had a really great District Meeting this week about charity and love and what that means and how we get it (Elder Alder does a GREAT job teaching) in which he brought up DC 11:20. I liked it compared to Moses 1:39. Our work is to be obedient (DC 11:20). God's work is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39). People will always have their agency and can do what they will. All we can do is be obedient!
After our District Meeting we headed out to Rihard's to stack wood. Being girls they wanted to give us the "easier" job which was totally not easier. Instead of stacking wood in the shed, we were supposed to grab a pile of wood and then haul it up the stairs and stack it in Rihard's hall. And boy did we stack it. And then we ran into the ceiling so we stopped. It was fun and so nice to be working outside like at the farm. The weather was also sunny for this firewood adventure. Afterwards we had a meeting with Presidents and Rihards in which we found out Rihards is engaged! About time! Though it won't be until next July. We are pretty excited for him. We had flying saucers for lunch since we bonded over them last week and then had a lesson with Guna from English (who is the Beldavi's aunt...weird!)
Wednesday we got to watch the first session of General Conference in English. So good! We also had a good lesson with Zenta about baptism and what exactly it is. She had some questions about what if we sin after we are baptized...she is a smart cookie. :) We stopped and said "hi" to Lidija and Ausma. They are both doing fine and we took a muffin to Marika. She came to her door as we were writing a note. We confused her a lot since our meeting with her was scheduled for Friday. We went to a meeting at a non-existent address. The elders always have the most reliable referrals :). We did meet some very nice people along the way though. Santa D. doesn't have cancer and Riksi still has fleas but both are doing well.
Conference was amazing yet again. Talk after talk has been answers to questions (except for the one about having babies...and the chicken drum one) Thursday was a good feeding day at the sister missionaries' apartment. We made pumpkin-carrot soup as well as no knead bread. It was amazing. It made up with the ice berg that we hit that we didn't know existed. One of our older members feels guilty for her son's disability that he may have gotten when he hit his head when he was younger. She feels responsible for not preventing the accident. It was really sad to see her, she has been carrying around this burden for a long time. I cried with her. We were able to see President Uchtdorf's RS talk which was amazing. If you haven't watched it, you should. We made popcorn in a pot (my new favorite snack as of yesterday's practice session) and had a party and watched the Restoration film and then had a testimony meeting after. Aivars Fishmeisters was there and I think his heart is softening slowly. After the party (aka pasakums) we had a lesson with Rita and Sandijs about repentance using the story of the sons of Mosiah. The atonement is real!
On Friday we watched the Priesthood session which was amazing. That is so crazy about senior missionaries! We do love senior missionaries. I'm expecting dad to be off on a mission before I get home. I enjoyed all the talks on missionary work as well. Many speakers spoke to the missionaries. We made banana fajitas for lunch and then had a meeting with Rafaella. She is in her late teens and investigated the church a few years ago. She is thinking she is on the "middle path" of life- not Satan's but not God's path. We were bold and told her that if she wasn't on God's path she was on Satan's and that she needed to decide where she wants to go in life and after this life. We challenged her to pray every day for the peace she had when she was investigating the church and to read Ether 12. It was a good lesson, but not at all what we planned. We had our meeting with Marika and talked for way too long about food. We are officially all bonded now in our love for cooking and Marika came to sacrament meeting, so that was good.
On Saturday another session of GC. Quote of the week: "Oh look! The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has matching pink snuggies!" Elder Palmer is quite the comic. Sunday night when we watched conference he was speaking instead of singing the closing hymn is this old person/Gollum from Lord of the Rings/just really funny voice. Anywho, we cleaned the church as usual and had a very large English class again. We had a leftover fiesta and then went to the beach to see the end of the sunset. It was so gorgeous and it wasn't windy which made it even that more enjoyable. We also had time to search for past church members. None of them lived at their old addresses, but everyone was very kind and helpful, especially with finding buildings. This one man was stopped by a woman who only spoke Russian who was trying to help us. He then looked around, called his wife, and told several other people and called after us several times to redirect us
Sunday was a miracle Sunday. I fasted for Oskars who is having Word of Wisdom problems and felt a lot better about it (I cried about that one too...stupid Satan is just getting everyone). He is going to kick the habit again. Few of the "regulars" were there, but there were so many inactives that haven't been in who knows how long. They all new each other and it was exciting to see them all there. They enjoyed Elder Palmer's great talk about his conversion as well as our impromptu missionary musical number. Ruta G. taught a great lesson about service in Sunday School and I taught about the restoration in Relief Society. Sister Wilson is now basically the Primary President. We are just going to rule the whole church down in Liepaja :). Not really, but it is a blessing to be able to help and use our talents.
Create a great week. Enjoy the weather and being able to control your heating in your homes!
Loves,
Sister Lindstrom
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