It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...at least decoration wise. :) There are angels "floating" in the river, the bridge is covered with gingerbread cookies, there is a tram that is covered in Christmas lights, the Catholic church has them as well, a giant Christmas tree is in center, and the University has giant white lights and snowflakes on campus. I am perfectly fine with the fact that there is no snow on the ground. No snow = above freezing and with wind chill it isn't too bad. I realized last night that this is the 4th Christmas away from home for me. I am ready to be back home, doing the nativity and driving dad nuts, eating cold cereal Christmas morning after waking up way too early, and of course, slurpees at 7-11 with my favorite people on Christmas Eve. There's always next year though!
Did I mention that I feel like I live in "It's a Wonderful Life"? Currently there is a bank crisis here in Latvija. One Latvian bank went bankrupt and all the time there are huge lines at banks- people trying to get out their money and such.
Last Monday was quite adventurous. We went with recent convert Liga to try out these massaging beds. It was actually really nice. That is the best my legs have felt in years! (Now don't I sound old.) The people there do a great job at brainwashing you into thinking that you need a 30 centime massage every day (aka 60 cents US for about a half hour massage and 30 minutes or so of brainwashing to like their products). The shorter days haven't been bothering me as much as I thought...we've been very busy this week though with various activities. Mostly we just live in a time warp of perpetual gray, the occasional rain, wind, and blue sky. I'm just glad that it isn't super cold. Our windows are quite drafty. Our house temperature ranges from 61 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. We bought some tape and are going to tape up the windows today and see if it makes it less draft. So anywho, we ate at my favorite Pastnieka Maja. I got fish and rice. It was weird, we ate upstairs, which isn't very cute. There are VERY large pink flowers on the walls and yes...I just like downstairs and outside better. Speaking of outside, there is a boardwalk that leads across some grass to Pastnieka Maja. Elder Alder was sliding on it because it was hail/rain/snowing and he biffed it and fell really hard. He was soaking wet and embarrassed and we all had belly aches from laughing. We made a bunch of playdough ornaments for ward members that we still need to paint.
Tuesday we had quite the weather- more of the rain/snow/hail with wind. I now know why I went to physical therapy for so long...so I could walk backwards and sideways really fast so you don't get pelted in the face by hail going at least 30 mph. I knew there had to be a reason they always made me practice traveling all sorts of directions of that treadmill! Mostly the weather just made me laugh, although I was very wet very quickly. We had lunch with Ruta Jekste, the former RS president who randomly went off to Germany. She is back and is doing well. She really didn't like her job there...they were very restrictive on her freedom. Needless to say she talked our ears off and is glad to be back in the Branch and helping out. She fed us rice with beef and carrots "chinese food!". We dropped off cookies to some members, overall it went well. We were able to see one member, Alesja, who hasn't been to church for 10 years and set up an appointment to talk with her.
On Wednesday we took cookies to inactive Lydia and Dzintra. They were NOT happy to see us. I left the cookies outside their doors anyway. :) Ausma was happy to see us and We had a good lesson with Alesja. She is 20 and got baptized when she was about ten. She is really nice and sweet-tempered and wants to come to church once she finishes learning how to drive. Driving here is a big deal- it is really expensive and the law is soon changing that you have to be 21 to drive here. You lose your license if you ever hit anyone and they have a disciple points and fine system like we do in Utah. We visited a possible investigator, Inga. She is the Branch President Wife's friend. She is a nice lady who needs to make some life changes but will one day be a member. We had a good evening harvesting. Lots of people gave us their phone numbers and said we could come back.
Thursday’s highlights included eating lunch at Zelma's house. She fed us frikadellas with potatoes and sour cream. We eat everything with sour cream here- soup, potatoes, pancakes, meat, salad, pretty much anything and everything. They are proud of their potatoes here. Lots of varieties and a lot more flavorful than Idaho potatoes. We held a Relief Society party in the evening...we made Christmas cards as well as flowers from cloth to wear. Overall it went really well and we are planning on having another activity to make even more cards.
Friday, oh Friday. It was snowing on Friday (it is all gone now). But you see, there is this cute old man who is out every morning and stands by the gate to the old Catholic church and begs for money. He was out today in the awful weather and the priest told him to leave and he was walking across the cobblestone with his cane looking defeated and it was just really sad. I cried for him. We are so blessed to have so much. So so much. There would be many many families living in houses the size we have in Utah. We made a yummy creamy vegetable soup (with far too much onion...oh boy!), and we did a lot of calling of persons on Friday. Presidents sang for us....it was some crazy Russian- 80s techno super weird song about forgiveness. I think he should keep to his opera. It was pretty great though...I just imagined him in a gangster outfit with some electric guitar players with long hair behind him. I gently nudged that he shouldn't sing it for the Christmas party. We had tea and cookies with Liga in the evening and talked to her about tithing. She is excited to pay it and it was just a good lesson overall.
On Saturday we only had 6 or so people at English...all of our Lauma (lingerie factory) students are working 6 days a week to finish a huge order. We had a good lesson with Santa from Enos 1. I really like Enos one, it was a really touching chapter for me. I especially liked the last two verses. We had a choir practice...mostly missionaries and a few members. So far I don't have any solos, so that is good. We are learning some traditional Latvian Christmas songs, as well as other songs like "Go Tell It On A Mountain" in Latvian. We love feeling like a Baptist church! We went harvesting and a young dad set up an appointment with us for next Wednesday...wahoo! Sister Wilson was in need of some chocolate Saturday night and after buying 5 lats worth she set off the alarm. A big security man then came and grabbed her. I had to quickly grab all her chocolate and other articles and go chasing after them. They disappeared! Luckily Sister Wilson is loud so I could hear her. She was in a boxed off security room and apparently her pocket dictionary set off the alarm. Always an adventure!
On Sunday I was able to give a talk about family. It went really well and several members thanked me after, so I guess it was good! I talked a lot about how my family is a great example to me, especially my parents. They have taught me about the importance of family history, how to work, how to serve, the importance of the temple, daily scripture study, home and visiting teaching, family prayer, and so on. I helped Sister Wilson in Primary. The kids were pretty rowdy so we did some pretty silly games while singing. In the end they just ended up making a fort out of blankets and chairs...wild children! We then did normal missionary work- trying to find people and there wasn't anything too exciting there.
Merry Christmas!
Love, Sister L
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Week 42
Monday
Thanksgiving take two was definitely a lot less stressful and almost as good. We didn't finish Thanksgiving leftovers until Thursday. Our district had a nice time talking and writing letters. In the evening we went and had FHE with the Frolavi family since they are having some family trials. They are doing well. Afterwards we dropped Jana Gromenko (inactive) and gave her cookies. She let us in for a spiritual thought and for a return appointment!
Tuesday
In District Meeting I was glad for the opportunity to practice teaching about dispensations. As of late I've been going over the first three lessons in PMG and learning a lot and improving my teaching. We went with Lidija L. to do her visiting teaching. We went to visit an awesome inactive member, Mara. She and Lidija butted heads at first, but by the end everyone was sipping tea and enjoying Mara showing us all of the crafts that she has made. Luckily the whispers of inspiration told me to 1. bring Mara's address and 2. prepare a spiritual thought. We taught Santa Dike (recent convert) in the evening about Gifts of the Spirit and you know what, she didn't crack one single joke about it. I was kind of disappointed. Regardless, it was a great lesson.
Wednesday
Everyone decided to cancel on us. It ended up working out though because Lidija called during studies and asked if we could take her daughter to the dentist since she had to work. The dentist was behind schedule and so it all worked out. It was interesting to be inside a school here. It was PURE CHAOS. I have never seen so many little people punching each other and being so loud. It would be pure madness to be a teacher here. I am grateful that we have a more civilized educational approach. We went by Liga's (recent convert...the one who practically took the Book of Mormon out of my hands) even though she had cancelled on us earlier and she let us in! We had cookies and she was so glad to see us that she made us peppermint tea and bread and butter. I have a confession, I kind of like tea now. Sugar is the key. Anywho, Liga invited us to go get 30 centime (60 US cents) massages with her on Monday [in retrospect it was a very nice massage by a machine].
Thursday
We went and had probably our best lesson with inactive Vineta. Her husband was home and he took little Marex (who still doesn't talk) for a little bit and you could actually feel the Spirit really strongly, it was great! We had a lesson with Oskars in his home. Wow. We are just spoiled little people. Oskars lives in a one room home with a wood stove, 2 old broken beds, 2 chairs that he places his clothes on, no fridge, no cupboards, just a small table by a sink and enough dishes to serve himself. We are so blessed to have so much and yet we always want more. There are others who have nothing and are happy. I think we have a big lesson to learn from them. The gospel has made Oskars happy. He was just beaming when he showed us pictures of his family (all now deceased). We went to the town tree lighting ceremony. It was really fun. Different classes from the schools dressed up and sort of had a parade. They sang some traditional folk songs about how it is getting dark and how they have the stars for light but want the sun and so on. It was all really pretty and there were so many cute families. Since the whole cookie thing has been going so well, we decided to try it with an investigator we haven't been able to meet with, Zenta [older, has the grandson with the crazy random disease]. She, along with all our other investigators will be busy pretty much all December.
Friday
Yay for early morning trips to Riga. The handsome ortho was able to fix my new retainers right away. We went around Imanta a little bit- it was weird to be in my old stomping grounds. We then picked up mail and I ended up carrying a very heavy package around all day in the rain and wind. We found a great cafe, Sweetday Cafe, and had some creamy vegetable soup with some good but overpriced chocolate cake with ice cream and fruit. It was pretty epically eclectic. It reminded me of a cafe that Kimmie, Kirstin, and I would have. They were also playing awesome old school (aka Nat King Cole) Christmas music which is my favorite. I love the old stuff!
Satuday
The church got attacked again. More graffiti and three broken windows. Last week they tried to steal the sign. We don't know who it is, but we have a sneaking suspicion that it could be some previous investigators. We had a neat little moment in English class...we were going over how the BOM answers questions to the soul and spent some time showing everyone how to look up the scriptures and they all seemed a lot more comfortable and everyone took a BOM at the end! That NEVER happens! It was super awesome. We went off with Lidija again to help with her visiting teaching. On the way I dropped the phone in a puddle. Never fear, the phone is fine! It wasn't like when Sister Sutterfield ran it through the laundry by any means. The inactive woman we visited, Inese was really great and her whole family (husband and 2 kids) are members. We had a good lesson with her, Lidija talked a LOT this time and Inese actually came to church on Sunday, what a miracle! Do your visiting and home teaching everybody! We had our lesson with Jana. Rubija a member who has been in France picking kiwis (no, she doesn't speak French) helped us with the lesson and I think Sister Gromenko really liked it.
Sunday
The Boswells came to church today which was fun! I translated Sister Boswell's testimony...it is hard waiting for people to finish their thoughts and then translate. I do much better translating as they talk. I was in Primary for singing time with Sister Wilson and then Sister Boswell went to Relief Society with me so I could do my duties there. We then had lentil soup and biscuits to break our fast. We love having the Boswell's over!
Thanksgiving take two was definitely a lot less stressful and almost as good. We didn't finish Thanksgiving leftovers until Thursday. Our district had a nice time talking and writing letters. In the evening we went and had FHE with the Frolavi family since they are having some family trials. They are doing well. Afterwards we dropped Jana Gromenko (inactive) and gave her cookies. She let us in for a spiritual thought and for a return appointment!
Tuesday
In District Meeting I was glad for the opportunity to practice teaching about dispensations. As of late I've been going over the first three lessons in PMG and learning a lot and improving my teaching. We went with Lidija L. to do her visiting teaching. We went to visit an awesome inactive member, Mara. She and Lidija butted heads at first, but by the end everyone was sipping tea and enjoying Mara showing us all of the crafts that she has made. Luckily the whispers of inspiration told me to 1. bring Mara's address and 2. prepare a spiritual thought. We taught Santa Dike (recent convert) in the evening about Gifts of the Spirit and you know what, she didn't crack one single joke about it. I was kind of disappointed. Regardless, it was a great lesson.
Wednesday
Everyone decided to cancel on us. It ended up working out though because Lidija called during studies and asked if we could take her daughter to the dentist since she had to work. The dentist was behind schedule and so it all worked out. It was interesting to be inside a school here. It was PURE CHAOS. I have never seen so many little people punching each other and being so loud. It would be pure madness to be a teacher here. I am grateful that we have a more civilized educational approach. We went by Liga's (recent convert...the one who practically took the Book of Mormon out of my hands) even though she had cancelled on us earlier and she let us in! We had cookies and she was so glad to see us that she made us peppermint tea and bread and butter. I have a confession, I kind of like tea now. Sugar is the key. Anywho, Liga invited us to go get 30 centime (60 US cents) massages with her on Monday [in retrospect it was a very nice massage by a machine].
Thursday
We went and had probably our best lesson with inactive Vineta. Her husband was home and he took little Marex (who still doesn't talk) for a little bit and you could actually feel the Spirit really strongly, it was great! We had a lesson with Oskars in his home. Wow. We are just spoiled little people. Oskars lives in a one room home with a wood stove, 2 old broken beds, 2 chairs that he places his clothes on, no fridge, no cupboards, just a small table by a sink and enough dishes to serve himself. We are so blessed to have so much and yet we always want more. There are others who have nothing and are happy. I think we have a big lesson to learn from them. The gospel has made Oskars happy. He was just beaming when he showed us pictures of his family (all now deceased). We went to the town tree lighting ceremony. It was really fun. Different classes from the schools dressed up and sort of had a parade. They sang some traditional folk songs about how it is getting dark and how they have the stars for light but want the sun and so on. It was all really pretty and there were so many cute families. Since the whole cookie thing has been going so well, we decided to try it with an investigator we haven't been able to meet with, Zenta [older, has the grandson with the crazy random disease]. She, along with all our other investigators will be busy pretty much all December.
Friday
Yay for early morning trips to Riga. The handsome ortho was able to fix my new retainers right away. We went around Imanta a little bit- it was weird to be in my old stomping grounds. We then picked up mail and I ended up carrying a very heavy package around all day in the rain and wind. We found a great cafe, Sweetday Cafe, and had some creamy vegetable soup with some good but overpriced chocolate cake with ice cream and fruit. It was pretty epically eclectic. It reminded me of a cafe that Kimmie, Kirstin, and I would have. They were also playing awesome old school (aka Nat King Cole) Christmas music which is my favorite. I love the old stuff!
Satuday
The church got attacked again. More graffiti and three broken windows. Last week they tried to steal the sign. We don't know who it is, but we have a sneaking suspicion that it could be some previous investigators. We had a neat little moment in English class...we were going over how the BOM answers questions to the soul and spent some time showing everyone how to look up the scriptures and they all seemed a lot more comfortable and everyone took a BOM at the end! That NEVER happens! It was super awesome. We went off with Lidija again to help with her visiting teaching. On the way I dropped the phone in a puddle. Never fear, the phone is fine! It wasn't like when Sister Sutterfield ran it through the laundry by any means. The inactive woman we visited, Inese was really great and her whole family (husband and 2 kids) are members. We had a good lesson with her, Lidija talked a LOT this time and Inese actually came to church on Sunday, what a miracle! Do your visiting and home teaching everybody! We had our lesson with Jana. Rubija a member who has been in France picking kiwis (no, she doesn't speak French) helped us with the lesson and I think Sister Gromenko really liked it.
Sunday
The Boswells came to church today which was fun! I translated Sister Boswell's testimony...it is hard waiting for people to finish their thoughts and then translate. I do much better translating as they talk. I was in Primary for singing time with Sister Wilson and then Sister Boswell went to Relief Society with me so I could do my duties there. We then had lentil soup and biscuits to break our fast. We love having the Boswell's over!
Monday, November 28, 2011
Week 41
Choosing clothes is tiring. I found Sister Wilson Monday morning half dressed, with her towel on her head asleep on her bed. It was pretty funny that she fell asleep dressing. We were able to visit and have two family home evenings- one with the Tolmachovi and the other with the Frolavi family. We did both on the Title of Liberty and had the families make their own. The Tolmachovi were so cute; it was a whole family affair. Selina (6) helped to trace mom and dad's hands. Dad then grabbed the cat and his paw was traced. Mom and Dad then pinned down baby Eliza's hand so that Selina could trace it as well. It was pretty great. We were also able to rack Sister Marika's brain with language questions and share a spiritual thought on priorities. It is true that if we put God first, the rest will fall into place.
We had an interesting District Meeting topic on Tuesday: declaring with the sound of a trump. I did a practice with Elder Palmer. It is probably good I don't speak Russian. I was trying to guess what he was saying, which just led to both of us laughing a lot. You have to love miscommunication. We went to visit cute ole Ausma. Poor lady is sick but her testimony is as strong as ever. Sister Wilson introduced me to a family favorite- "Dad's Sandwiches" aka grilled cheese with ham and pickle. It is quite good. I convinced her to let us have it two days in a row. Normally we don't have sandwiches (normally we also don't have dinner, just lunch) because it costs so much to get all of the individual ingredients to make a good sandwich.
It was neat to see inactive Vineta pray at the end of our lesson about faith. It was a drastic improvement from her last prayer. I hope that she continues to pray so that God may bless her. I made my first homemade pumpkin pie on Wednesday! It isn't that hard. We also made an apple pie. They both tasted swell, but they don't hold a candle to mom's pies. Sintija helped us to teach Santa about prophets. It was so fun to see Sintija asking Santa questions to make sure that her new friend was understanding the gospel. She was a great member missionary! We are planning on softening Santa's parents hearts with cookies this week.
We were able to C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E Thanksgiving Wilson style (aka with twice as much food than I would have bought). The elders were very grateful that they were in a district with sisters. All in all we had two stuffed chickens, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, jello, pumpkin and apple pie, whipped cream, carrots, corn, and green beans, and rolls. I was in charge of the rolls like mom always is. They definitely weren't as nice looking as mom's but they tasted just as good. I also made some orange and cinnamon rolls. The elders were amazing and were in love with the rolls. They thought that would be an acceptable Thanksgiving feast. We had two hours of our preparation day time from Monday to use on Thursday for Thanksgiving so we ate all night long. Everyone in center was able to have a huge celebration and be with the Boswells and Elder and Sister Lawrence from the Europe East Area presidency. I was so pooped by the end of the night though; I didn't even care that the phone was lost and we were leaving to Riga the next morning.
Thankfully the elders had accidentally taken our phone so it was back in our possession 6:30 am. On the way up to Riga we got to hear book 2 (out of 7) from Elder Palmer's series that he is writing called Abraxis. I can't wait to read these books. Sister Wilson had her big ole blue eyes popping out of the sockets hearing the story. I like my Latvian orthodontist. He is young, nice, funny, and attractive..all the qualities my orthodontist at home is lacking. He actually left Sister Wilson speechless, which is a feat in itself. Anywho, he stuck clay in my mouth to get a mold of my teeth for new retainers. They cost 51 lats, which I don't think is too bad all things considered. I am having some elders take them back though because when I put them on Friday night they were cutting into my gums...oww. Anywho, after the attractive ortho we had pizza with the sisters and then I went with Sister Ferrin to teach some lessons. It was nice to be with her again, we are generally on the same page with most things. I am going to miss her. We got to teach a less active with the Russian sisters who are my favorite people. Sometimes I think I got called to the wrong language because I love all the Russian sisters so much and would kill to serve with them. Sister Ferrin and I have fun though. Other than the fact that every door that was mine to contact was Russian, we had a blast. We got to one floor in a building that smelled particularly cologne-ish. We knocked on the doors and out of one pops this 20-something year old charmer. He was just in awe that we were American and bummed that we couldn't go party with him. I told him we could talk about Jesus, but he said he was relaxing for the evening. He wants to go out for coffee this Monday, so hopefully the sisters in Riga have a fun time with good old Gatis. He even kissed our hands goodbye. I thought it was pretty hilarious. Sister Ferrin just started running down the stairs going, "This is why I don't want to go home and date! Ahh!" I cut Sister Sutterfield's hair Friday night and then we all didn't get any sleep (and not because we were talking) before...
ZONE CONFERENCE on Saturday! It was intense. Sister Lawrence used to be the seminary of all seminary teachers. Our brains all hurt after she told us about the House of Israel and its implications in missionary work and as people in general. She is a scriptorian to say the least. We learned some neat stuff. The take home point is that if you are from the House of Israel (which pretty much every person who joins the church is) you most likely promised in heaven to help gather scattered Israel. Gentiles also don't get adopted into tribes. Elder Lawrence told us 5 Keys to Success in missionary work and then I had lunch with him and his wife. Sister Boswell talked about what made the Sons of Mosiah successful (prayer, fasting, scripture study), and President Boswell touched us all as he talked about Christ and the fourth watch. God is never late. We are first watch prayers to a forth watch God, that is all. Elder Lawrence then gave us all a huge slap in the face. Our baptismal numbers are the worst for the Europe East Area so we got a good talking to about what we need to be doing to improve our baptismal rate. I'm just glad it wasn't Elder Holland because then we would have all most definitely been crying. The happy take away message is that I have lots of things to work on in my missionary work. Testimony meeting was really great...it is so weird that we are losing over half the masas in 3 weeks! We were able to take the bus home with the Liepaja RS. They were up in Imanta (my old stomping grounds) for a RS Conference. It was a great opportunity to mingle with the members and talk to them. I didn't head to the back of the bus with the other missionaries. I sat up by Skaidra and some other ladies and we talked about life and I asked them about Christmas traditions in Latvia and such. The biggest thing is advent- 4 Sundays before Christmas they have a wreath with 4 candles and you light a candle every Sunday.
Sunday was fun. I helped Sister Wilson in Primary because the kids were making cookies for the linger longer, which was a success, along with the delicious taco soup we made. Nothing too crazy happened other than the weather on Sunday. It was VERY windy and rainy. I thought I was going to be blown away walking to the Beldavi's home. We had a fun time making Nephi's bow with them (which broke when they tried to shoot arrows), but I think they got the take home message. Don't complain about your circumstances, go do something and ask God to help you!
I know that God will help us and that He is never late. He is always there guiding us gently. I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for you.
Love,
Sis L
(Make sure to take a look at the pictures below: including corn dogs made on 11/11/11; and Mari with Santa Dike and Oskars)
We had an interesting District Meeting topic on Tuesday: declaring with the sound of a trump. I did a practice with Elder Palmer. It is probably good I don't speak Russian. I was trying to guess what he was saying, which just led to both of us laughing a lot. You have to love miscommunication. We went to visit cute ole Ausma. Poor lady is sick but her testimony is as strong as ever. Sister Wilson introduced me to a family favorite- "Dad's Sandwiches" aka grilled cheese with ham and pickle. It is quite good. I convinced her to let us have it two days in a row. Normally we don't have sandwiches (normally we also don't have dinner, just lunch) because it costs so much to get all of the individual ingredients to make a good sandwich.
It was neat to see inactive Vineta pray at the end of our lesson about faith. It was a drastic improvement from her last prayer. I hope that she continues to pray so that God may bless her. I made my first homemade pumpkin pie on Wednesday! It isn't that hard. We also made an apple pie. They both tasted swell, but they don't hold a candle to mom's pies. Sintija helped us to teach Santa about prophets. It was so fun to see Sintija asking Santa questions to make sure that her new friend was understanding the gospel. She was a great member missionary! We are planning on softening Santa's parents hearts with cookies this week.
We were able to C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E Thanksgiving Wilson style (aka with twice as much food than I would have bought). The elders were very grateful that they were in a district with sisters. All in all we had two stuffed chickens, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, jello, pumpkin and apple pie, whipped cream, carrots, corn, and green beans, and rolls. I was in charge of the rolls like mom always is. They definitely weren't as nice looking as mom's but they tasted just as good. I also made some orange and cinnamon rolls. The elders were amazing and were in love with the rolls. They thought that would be an acceptable Thanksgiving feast. We had two hours of our preparation day time from Monday to use on Thursday for Thanksgiving so we ate all night long. Everyone in center was able to have a huge celebration and be with the Boswells and Elder and Sister Lawrence from the Europe East Area presidency. I was so pooped by the end of the night though; I didn't even care that the phone was lost and we were leaving to Riga the next morning.
Thankfully the elders had accidentally taken our phone so it was back in our possession 6:30 am. On the way up to Riga we got to hear book 2 (out of 7) from Elder Palmer's series that he is writing called Abraxis. I can't wait to read these books. Sister Wilson had her big ole blue eyes popping out of the sockets hearing the story. I like my Latvian orthodontist. He is young, nice, funny, and attractive..all the qualities my orthodontist at home is lacking. He actually left Sister Wilson speechless, which is a feat in itself. Anywho, he stuck clay in my mouth to get a mold of my teeth for new retainers. They cost 51 lats, which I don't think is too bad all things considered. I am having some elders take them back though because when I put them on Friday night they were cutting into my gums...oww. Anywho, after the attractive ortho we had pizza with the sisters and then I went with Sister Ferrin to teach some lessons. It was nice to be with her again, we are generally on the same page with most things. I am going to miss her. We got to teach a less active with the Russian sisters who are my favorite people. Sometimes I think I got called to the wrong language because I love all the Russian sisters so much and would kill to serve with them. Sister Ferrin and I have fun though. Other than the fact that every door that was mine to contact was Russian, we had a blast. We got to one floor in a building that smelled particularly cologne-ish. We knocked on the doors and out of one pops this 20-something year old charmer. He was just in awe that we were American and bummed that we couldn't go party with him. I told him we could talk about Jesus, but he said he was relaxing for the evening. He wants to go out for coffee this Monday, so hopefully the sisters in Riga have a fun time with good old Gatis. He even kissed our hands goodbye. I thought it was pretty hilarious. Sister Ferrin just started running down the stairs going, "This is why I don't want to go home and date! Ahh!" I cut Sister Sutterfield's hair Friday night and then we all didn't get any sleep (and not because we were talking) before...
ZONE CONFERENCE on Saturday! It was intense. Sister Lawrence used to be the seminary of all seminary teachers. Our brains all hurt after she told us about the House of Israel and its implications in missionary work and as people in general. She is a scriptorian to say the least. We learned some neat stuff. The take home point is that if you are from the House of Israel (which pretty much every person who joins the church is) you most likely promised in heaven to help gather scattered Israel. Gentiles also don't get adopted into tribes. Elder Lawrence told us 5 Keys to Success in missionary work and then I had lunch with him and his wife. Sister Boswell talked about what made the Sons of Mosiah successful (prayer, fasting, scripture study), and President Boswell touched us all as he talked about Christ and the fourth watch. God is never late. We are first watch prayers to a forth watch God, that is all. Elder Lawrence then gave us all a huge slap in the face. Our baptismal numbers are the worst for the Europe East Area so we got a good talking to about what we need to be doing to improve our baptismal rate. I'm just glad it wasn't Elder Holland because then we would have all most definitely been crying. The happy take away message is that I have lots of things to work on in my missionary work. Testimony meeting was really great...it is so weird that we are losing over half the masas in 3 weeks! We were able to take the bus home with the Liepaja RS. They were up in Imanta (my old stomping grounds) for a RS Conference. It was a great opportunity to mingle with the members and talk to them. I didn't head to the back of the bus with the other missionaries. I sat up by Skaidra and some other ladies and we talked about life and I asked them about Christmas traditions in Latvia and such. The biggest thing is advent- 4 Sundays before Christmas they have a wreath with 4 candles and you light a candle every Sunday.
Sunday was fun. I helped Sister Wilson in Primary because the kids were making cookies for the linger longer, which was a success, along with the delicious taco soup we made. Nothing too crazy happened other than the weather on Sunday. It was VERY windy and rainy. I thought I was going to be blown away walking to the Beldavi's home. We had a fun time making Nephi's bow with them (which broke when they tried to shoot arrows), but I think they got the take home message. Don't complain about your circumstances, go do something and ask God to help you!
I know that God will help us and that He is never late. He is always there guiding us gently. I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for you.
Love,
Sis L
(Make sure to take a look at the pictures below: including corn dogs made on 11/11/11; and Mari with Santa Dike and Oskars)
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.
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