Week 60

Mari Apr. 9, 2012

Well, on Monday I was just on a shopping extrava. I went to my favorite second hand store, Second Breath, and got this bunny made from a glove that I have loved since I saw it who knows how many months ago. I also bought some yarn for some groovy chibas (slippers). We had burgers and fries at Fontaine's while a snow storm raged outside. Sister Clark tried to make Texas Sheet cake. She put the eggs in the boiling chocolate mix for some great looking chocolate egg drop soup. I made her start over. Harvesting I met a man named Arnis. He said he has lots of problems, has been looking, but isn't ready to talk about that kind of stuff yet. I'm praying that he will be ready soon.

On Tuesday we had some of the Texas sheet cake take two with nutella, raspberries, and whipping cream. Can you say yum? Holy cow, sometimes my ideas are too good. Elder Alder declared that it must be wonderful to be a sister because your apartment is a constant bakery. "Oh look, we have blueberry muffins coming out of the toilet again!" The big lesson that I learned this week is that the key to missionary work is being led by the Spirit. I am refocusing on that in my teaching and prayers. It makes a difference. Out on our way to harvest we had a pagan stop us and ask us what makes us different from other churches. Big can of worms! I never know where to start when people ask that. He was a really nice fellow, but started to run when we started for our planners.

Wednesday we taught Oskars by the Spirit. It was a neat lesson and he really really appreciated it. It felt good. We had a little miracle that a less-active's inactive daughter came and sat in on our lesson. We are trying to wise up with Kristina and Janis so we had Kaspars teach them about repentance. He did really good at involving Janis. We met an angel of a girl, Kira on the streets. We invited her to church and she said that she would try to come sometime. We also had a random Marta text us wanting to meet at 8pm at the church. Sadly she never showed up.

I was a beaming parent on Thursday. Sister Clark just marches up to people and starts to talk to them now. This is a complete 180 from her basically running in terror from people. On the tram in the morning I contacted a really nice father, who, sadly, is going back to Sweden for work tomorrow. The internet is everywhere though and he has our website. Margarita (Rita) is back in Liepaja! Holy happy joyous reunion. She looks really really happy and is excited to share the gospel with several of her friends here.

On Friday we colored 60, yes 60 eggs. We learned how to color some traditional Latvian style with onion skins. They turned out gorgeous. I am glad we didn't do all 60 that way though, it is a little time consuming. You have to wrap cloth as well as string around each individual egg. Someone was locked in their house when we were harvesting. We knocked and they tried and tried and tried and tried to open their door, but it wouldn't. After two or three minutes they finally gave up. I really wish we got to know who was on the other side.

Saturday we got to start watching conference. Priesthood session was really good. The music was very powerful. We had our branch easter party. Annika wanted to hide all 60 eggs by herself. We made her share, so I got to hide eggs out in the rain. We had lunch, which included some nasty stuff. Someone brought the chocolate syrup out and it went on top of EVERYTHING. Boiled eggs, bread, mayonnaise....disgusting! And they said we are sugar addicts in America... We played button button whose got the button with a rock. Behind our backs. Little Raivo was the cutest thing ever. He would just get huge eyes and smile if you asked if he had the rock even though he never did. We practiced for our musical number as missionaries. Elder Alder said I sounded like a rooster being strangled. I did. I can't sing, okay?!

Sunday's rendition wasn't much better. Good thing Sunday is over with. Sunday wasn't my day. I got two eggs from members, stuck them in the fridge, and someone took my eggs. :( I also tried to make meatloaf. Two hours of cooking later we gave up and ate it anyway. Trying to find people was less then effective. The only people home were people who were sick. Oh well, the snow is melting and it is supposed to be warm by the end of the week!

Christ lives. Our message shines brightly against the darkness, doubt, and depression of the world. He lives and because He lives we will live too.

Week 59

Mari 2 April 2012

Happy April! We definitely got an April Fools. Snow. Wind. Brr. Spring will come though.
We had a fairly mellow week. Sister Clark was sick, so not much happened.
The Highlights...

MONDAY
We met with Janis the older from English. He said he wanted to be baptized on Easter but that his wife isn't happy about that so he is thinking maybe Ligo (summer solstice). We called him later in the week to set up another appointment. To keep him and his wife from fighting he is no longer an investigator. He said maybe in the fall she would be simmered down though. He is such a hoot, I am sad I won't get to teach him more. He was telling us about taking jail tours with the Frank Constantino. He is a talker because he is a politician, but you can confound the wise when you ask spiritual questions. We met with Ruta and she fed us griki (buckwheat = yuck) with pork and white sauce. I survived. It wasn't THAT bad, but I wouldn't make it for myself. Ever. We also almost died on the tramvajs. There was a Russian brawl. I think the older one may have been trying to protect us since the younger one was staying stuff in Russian to us, but ne panyamaya. Beer was not thrown on us, no punches or kicks got us, but the stinking tram conductor wouldn't open the door and let us out! We got ice cream after that to calm our nerves.

TUESDAY
Surprise! The branch loves me! We were invited to a farewell party but it was also for my birthday! The branch is so great. There was cake, ice cream, brownies, and loved ones. Madara is leaving on her mission to Temple Square Thursday morning! We also got mail. Thanks mom! That card is funny; I definitely didn't get it last year. I apologize to everyone who has written and hasn't received a reply...it means that I didn't receive your mail. The former Masa Amelia Largey was in the country and we were able to help her track down some old friends.

WEDNESDAY
My boots broke. Boo. Luckily it was just the zipper and it only cost 4$ to fix it! We had District Meeting and our opening song was horrid. We could not compose ourselves even to pray. Oh boy. We had a great lesson with the Beldavi on fasting. They are so stinking cute!

THURSDAY
We needed to travel up to Riga so I could renew my visa. Again. The bus ride up was enjoyable because surprise surprise Amelia and the elders were also going to Riga so we all got to reminisce about old missionaries. Filling out my visa papers was fun. I don't know how old anyone is. My momma is 21, okay. Luckily Sister Millet said it wasn't too important. One elder she said had 10 siblings, but Valerijs, the man who helps us, said, "Today you are an only child." Sister Wilson and Sister Kerr came and we had lunch together at Dada's. Those two are ridiculously happy and ridiculous together. We did planning on the bus ride home and were able to do some knocking on some doors.

FRIDAY
SC was still sick so I made chicken noodle soup that ended up more like dumpling and dumpling soup. Lots of dumplings. Lots of soup. We visited good old Ausma. She can see a ton better now and told us how dirty her house is now that she can see (but that she is also lazy). She also showed us amazing photos from when she was young. We met a very kind gypsy. Russian family, born in Latvia, loves the country, speaks incredible English. He told us not to own a house because then you are a slave to it and have to take care of it. He also tried to be pen pals with us, but luckily the rain started. We taught Kristina about fasting and it went well and the spirit was very strong.

SATURDAY
We helped a member translate her CV. I haven't made one of those in a while. It was kind of hard. We also went shopping with the Rutas for break the fast. We are going to die from the market meat. It is not sanitary! We had a really fun time before meeting with Kristina. I couldn't stop burping. You'd of thunk that I drunk air or something, it was a good five minutes. I fear to think of what Sister Clark thinks of me. We ended up reading a conference talk with her since Janis didn't come in for the lesson and it was one we wanted him to be there for!

SUNDAY
Leading music is hard when it is the church cds. They do not keep the same tempo. The branch really struggled with that. We had borsch together for break the fast. Harvesting we knocked into a man who couldn't stop laughing but said we could come back. Sounds fun!

EASTER IN LATVIA
Calm, or Quiet Week starts with Palm, or Pussy Willow Sunday (the Sunday before Easter). You get to whack people with pussy willows to bring them good health if you are the first one awake.
There is then Green Thursday which is when Christ supposedly performed the sacrament, so they have a sacrament meeting then.
Big Friday is Christ's death day. They don't have sacrament on that day.
Silent Saturday is when they glorify Christ being in the tomb. Church services are "quieter" on these days.
Sunday is the Big Day, a joyful day where they celebrate the Resurrection of Christ.
On Easter you can eat peas to be rich and prosperous.
If you don't want big legs you are to get up before the sun and climb up a rock with bare legs.
You have to swing a lot and then you won't be sleepy all year.
Also, Thor, tradition says that you need to prune the apple trees on the First Easter so that there will be a lot of apples.
If it rains on Easter then the cows will give lots of milk.
You should drink at least 10 liters of birch sap. It will help get you in shape, clear out all that winter gunk.
They also have some Russian traditions- pasha and also kulichs (sort of like the British Easter Bread hot cross buns) that have fruit and frosting.

I hope you all enjoyed conference! We will be watching it in Latvian on the 14th and 15th.

Christ lives! It is our happy message to the world!

Pictures from Week 58

Week 58

Monday was filled with some crazy weather. Within 10 minutes we experienced sun, wind, rain, hail, and then snow. Mother Nature can be such a pill. No worries, that didn't stop us from making chicken pasta salad (YUMMM!) as well as a Texas sheet cake for a family home evening that we didn't go to because our investigators cancelled. Oh well. No use crying over baked cake. Admist our lack of FHE-ing we found an awesome fellow, Ivo. He has never been baptized but knows he should and wanted to know the difference between the Catholics and Lutherans. We love people with questions like those.

Tuesday's District Meeting had a really entertaining practice. We were working on contacting and gems so we had a teaching stick. Whoever was the investigator could randomly say "Pass!" and then you'd give it to someone else and you have to continue where they stopped off. We taught Janis the elder who is willing to meet with us 2-3 times a week and learn all that we have to teach. We showed him a teaching record and he was very interested in eternal marriage; he has been married 40 years now! We are pretty excited about his willingness to meet. Harvesting we ran into a J-dub (Jehovah's Witness). Oh boy! She was 84 and did not look it. She was really friendly and we were able to correct some of her beliefs about Mormons.

Wednesday was a sunny day. Hurray! I love the sun. Unlike this one lady we said hello to. You woulda thunk we killed her dog. And her cat. And her grandchildren. She was very offended that we were asking her how she was doing. Happy Thanksgiving! We bought one of those yummy stuffed chickens at Rimi (the supermarket) and had Thanksgiving dinner (minus the rolls and pie). The Scherbinini came and had a family home evening with us and Janis and Kristina. Ieva and Sarra both fell asleep during the lesson which was quite hilarious. We taught the Beldavi about missionary work and then had Inguss come and help us with a lesson to a new investigator Elina. Elina is already friends with a member, tries to read the Book of Mormon but doesn't understand it. She wants to start her life over but doesn't want to be baptized. She is in the elders' area so we will see if they can change that.

Happy Birthday to me! Thursday I turned twenty three. It wasn't the worst day, but it wasn't the best. I made myself a carrot cake. That was fun. I bought cream cheese. It indeed was creamy cheese. I'm glad I tasted it before I tried to make cheese whiz frosting. We went and bought real cream cheese. Another old person got mad at us for saying hello. She went off and was yelling super mean not true or necessary things. I just about cried waiting at the tram stop listening to her rant off a bunch of balogne. Janis cancelled on us. We had a lesson in the park with Laimonis, a member who sadly has a lot of questions and doubts. To mix up weekly planning we tried it Sista Johnson style and built a fort. We took a nap during the middle of planning because being on the floor was making us tired, lol. Favorite birthday phone call: Elder Carlsson (from Sweden) sang Happy Birthday in English and then a Swedish birthday song. THEN Elder Burr came on and sang in German and Russian. Elder Lynch then tried to sing like they would in Scotland. It was pretty fantastic and made my day almost as much as Santa's awesomeness. She had five salmon-colored roses for me and a box of fancy chocolates. I don't even want to know how much she spent on me, but it was so sweet. We had a lesson with her and at the end she said the nicest prayer ever. "Heavenly Father, thank you for this wonderful day. Of course it had to be wonderful because 23 years ago on this day our Dear Sister Lindstrom was born. She is a great missionary and friend. She is kind and a hard worker..." and all sorts of other nice stuff. I love that woman! We sang about the Wise and Foolish men at the Frolavis' and then we had to run (literally) to the church to close it. The elders brought me a bouquet of eggs. They were on kebab sticks and they thought they were pretty awesome.

On Friday no one jaked us! It was a miracle. We met with Vineta and we got to play tic-tac-toe with her daughter. Sister Clark also caught the cold her children had. We had a lovely stroll back to the church by some of the old houses here in Liepaja. They are so pretty. We met with Rita and discussed the Proclamation to the Family. She gasped at the part about parents being responsible for how they raise their children. We met with Baiba, a happy go lucky English student who said her first "real" prayer with us (which was awesome) and is willing to meet and sees the importance of the Book of Mormon! We also met with Marika and learned some language and shared a thought about the 10 Virgins.

Saturday we met with Oskars. He has a new new job that has better hours! We talked about opposition in all things and what we can do to conquer Satan- pray and read our scriptures! (2 Nephi 32:8-9, DC 10:5, Helaman 3:23-30, 1 Nephi 15:24). We taught Skaidra (LA) half english half spiritual thought on Visiting Teaching. She committed to do it and she even stayed after and helped to clean the church! Progress is beautiful! For service I cut and dyed Santa's hair. Oh boy, my 50-year-old friend now has plum colored hair. I didn't pick the color just so y'all know. We also ate gravy toast, talked about faith with Janis and Kristina and saw Valda. She said she couldn't talk long because of her illness. Some other members have seen her and it sounds more like controlling boyfriend Janis. Anywho....

Sunday was a blustery day. Pres. S. talked about the HTing message about prophets and Pres. Birkenfelt talked about a variety of things. Long story short church was entertaining. Two random girls showed up (18 or 20?), sat in the front row. At one point during sacrament meeting they got upset at each other and moved over seats so they weren't by each other. Girls. Sister Clark is sick so I mostly called people and let her sleep. Our new neighbors Ivo and Gints came by. I declined politely an invitation to their home. Bummer that I ALWAYS work. :) We also studied about Heaven sent questions on Sunday. It was amazing; I finally understand what that is and that we need to pause in our teaching and not say the first thing that comes to our minds.

I read about Shiblon in Alma 38. I really liked what his father had to say to him. I felt like it is what my Father would say to me. I love reading the Book of Mormon. I know that it is true. And so are you. I'm a poet, and you didn't even realize it!

xoxo

Cestra Linstrom

Week 57

Sorry this will be short. I spent some time trying to figure out schooling. I'll send pictures next week.

MONDAY

We made a cd from the free downloads on the LDS youth site. Yay for new music! Davis (age 7) came and helped us teach Janis and Kristina about temples and eternal marriage. She was really shy and didn't say anything in the lesson but was bouncing off the walls outside. We are glad she behaved. Sister Clark is having a rough time with the whole Valda totally ignoring the church and just the day and night contrast. Hard to imagine that a month ago she was begging us to come over every day. Now she doesn't acknowledge our existence if we see her on the street. :(

TUESDAY

The sunrise was beautiful at the beach. We practiced being conversational in District Meeting. Elder Alder is really good at it. We are not. We had pizza with mission leader Kaspars and his kids. We finally met with the Tolmacovi (LA) again! We had a great lesson about the compasses we have in our life. We also got to go contacting by the park and saw Ilze, the runner lady from last week running!

WEDNESDAY

Happy Pi day (3.14). We made a chocolate banana pie to celebrate. The crust was made out of banana flavored cookies. Yum! We had an English lesson/spiritual thought with an older lady Alvine from English. She brought me a pink and yellow rose! I was quite twitterpated. I worry for if a boy were to give one to me...I like flowers. Any boy definitely has competition with my English class though, lol. Flowers, chocolates.... anywho it was awesome because in the first 20 minutes of her lesson she started asking questions about the church and seems interested enough that she should be coming to an activity sometime! We also met with Skaidra (LA) and learned more about her and taught how obedience makes us free- God's laws aren't restrictions! We had a great lesson on talents with Zelma. She fed us yummy babushka food but the best part was the 5-year-old she was visiting. Raivo was super shy when we first got there and hid. In the middle he was pretending to be a lion and it was super funny. At the end he hid our books and then said he hid another one just so that we would stay! We also had sports night and I still have my floorball (street hockey) skills! I am out of shape though- It was right after way too many potatoes at Zelma's and I may have thrown up in my mouth. It reminded me of one of my good friends. ;D Member Raivo (the little one) was there and we played ball as well. His laugh is PURE HAPPINESS. Love it. On the way home the elders passed off a street contact, Elina. She is a nice lady who wants to know more about the BOM.

THURSDAY

It was Elder Alder's birthday so we took him breakfast in bed. At 6:25. We knocked for at least 3 minutes. We thought we were pretty funny (and so did he); we brought him cereal and forever shelf milk. Later in the day we took him 13 different flavors of cookies because he wouldn't tell us what kind are his favorite! Today the sunrise at the beach was a pretty pink. We taught a quiet lesson (all the kids were sleeping) to Janis and Kristina about the atonement. We taught Santa about how the Lord helps us to be obedient like he did with Nephi building the boat. While we were at the Beldavi teaching the word of wisdom Elvis (14) hid our books...seeing a trend??? I now know if a boy steals my book at the library he wants me to stay at the library, lol. We also got to be secret agents and sneak home so that the trolls wouldn't follow us. (explanation to follow).

FRIDAY

Good morning 4:30am bus ride! I thought we were going to die. We took a taxi to the bus station and our driver was SCARY. He was out smoking when we got outside. "How are you this morning?" I chirply asked. "I should be sleeping." "Shouldn't we all. *gulp*" We listened to heavy heavy metal on the way to the bus station. "Where exactly are you girls going? Riga? I could drive you there and we could get drinks." "No thanks, we already bought our tickets. The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful, other than watching people fall asleep on the bus. I didn't sleep much; I had a 250 pound Russian snoring in my lap. We had an amazing zone conference. We talked about how we are some of the few people who live the law of consecration, that we need to have "Sacred Grove" moments daily. President Birkenfelt (District Presidency) talked of the importance of speaking oru languages and it was really touching. President Boswell added that he had unfinished business- a whole list of people he wanted to teach the gospel and none of them in English. We learned about Belarus which will be joining our mission soon. The church isn't officially recognized there but they have 350 members, 120 active. Of those 120 51 are Mel. priesthood holders. All 51 have been through the temple and pay a full tithe. WOW! This was to show how important member referrals are because missionaries cannot proselyte in Belarus. We also learned about finding PMG pearl/gem/nugget/power punches to use in our teaching...sort of a swing back to the memorized days, but not. My favorite part was farewell testimonies. My favorite was Elder Carlson (our resident Swede). "Change is the center of our message. Embrace change. You can always change back." I really like that last part. I got a bunch of mail (thanks for the package AC!). We were walking up our stairwell when we got a call from the elders and headed over to the church. The trolls have been graffiti-ing the church every day this week because they got mad that we accused them of stealing some basketballs when we know they did. Anywho, mostly they have been writing bad stuff with dry erase markers on the windows (easy fix). They've also been calling a ton and sending inappropriate texts and following us around and yelling stuff at us. Friday night there were dozens and dozens of stickers all over the church, human feces by the door, permanent marker on the door frames, doors, windows, walls, a destroyed Book of Mormon and some mean notes. We had the police over. We aren't pressing charges (I have no idea why not), but we had a minor cleaning party at 10pm, music included.

SATURDAY

The music cleaning party continued since the church keeper has been at the temple all week and we were having the Relief Society party. Hairspray- it works. Anywho, the party was great. The men made us ziti and the talks were by the presidents of the auxillaries led by women. My favorite was Sister Wixom's about primary- loving people and smiling! Kristina finished reading the entire Book of Mormon. She is simply glowing- a total transformation.

SUNDAY

Was uneventful. The members were really sad to see the graffiti that was left. Good thing I don't know bad words in Latvian and Russian! We didn't run into anyone exciting harvesting and we will have a lot of finding time this next week.

The church is true! Willing obedience is the key!

xoxo

ML

March Pictures