This week was a lot more mellow than last week. It made it seem like it was forever ago that I was off on adventures in Lithuania. On Monday we didn't do much. I sat and listened to very funny Latvian pop songs for an hour and a half while Sister Ferrin got a pedicure. She really liked it and it made her happy. The cepelini from Cepelini did not make us as happy forever. We were quite excited to try this Lithuanian dish of meat in a potato shell with sauce after our excursion there but it wasn't very good. I'm sure it lives up to its reputation in Lithuania though. We did some shopping and I found a pretty awesome Vera Mode cardigan (for all you people who have been to Europe) for $1.50 which is quite the steal. It was definitely the highlight of my day. (That and that the color is, and I quote, "shark blue.") We did lots of calling in the evening (to be continued....)
Tuesday we went and visited former investigator Astride. She is an older lady that I called on Monday. She is sick and lonely and wanted us to come over right then. I told her that we couldn't Monday night, but that we could the next day so she said, "In the morning!" She is a sweet lady who has back problems and is going blind. She can't read but her kids bought her a plane ticket to England and she is going to get a laser eye operation there. We enjoyed visiting with her. She was pretty great. She wants to come to our church once she is back and she told us that we have beautiful teeth and that we need to get married. She also couldn't believe that we had to be in at 9pm. "That is the best time for dating! You should go out. No one would know." This was later followed by, "Latvian men are awful. They all drink and smoke." We visited with less active Ena who is still less active. At least she knows what she should be doing, that is always a good start. We taught her about Jesus Christ. I really like how frank she is. "No I didn't read the Book of Mormon. I could have, I had time, but I watched this new serial on TV instead even though I should be reading." We also met with Oskars and taught him about becoming gods (he asked for it!). It went much better than we were expecting and then we met with the Frolovi and trying to control Uldis, the dad, and Eriks, the son. We were talking about the armor of God. "I'd rather have a tree!" interrupted Eriks. And then in English Uldis starts, "Do you know what super hero is more powerful than spiderman? What is the word for cibas in English? Ah yes, slippers. Slipperman!" Oh goodness!
We feasted on homemade pizza on Wednesday and visited with Rita. She is still doing well and then we had sports night with the youth, which mostly consisted of Rita throwing a volleyball as hard as she could at Sandijs and vice versa. Madara went with us contacting. She is hopefully going to serve a mini-mission so we are pretty excited for her. The hooligans that are normally at the church were out where we were knocking. One of them has a crush on Sister Ferrin (he is maybe 12) and his older friend came into the apartment we were knocking and yelled, "We love you sisters!" while we were talking to this lady at her door. Jinkies!
Thursday was quite the day (conclusion of Monday). I called a potential investigator, Vineta, on Monday and she wanted to meet. Even more of a miracle was that she actually showed up, and with her two adorable kids. Her girl is probably around 4 or 5. "You speak Latvian bad. It sounds like Russian." "Well we aren't from Latvia." "Oh, that makes sense." Her little boy was a very big two year old who loved to play with the lights. So we were attempting to teach Vineta a first with all this excitement going on and watch The Restoration film. "I've seen this film before with other sisters. They came to my house and we watched it." Later on, "I have that book (pointing to The Book of Mormon) but it is black and it is bigger." "Does it have The Pearl of Great Price? Are you a member?" She was! It turns out that Vineta is this inactive member that has been missing for several years. How insane is that?!!? She doesn't have a correct address on the ward list and the phone number is wrong, so no one could ever find her. Her cell phone number was on a potential investigator list though. I love finding lost sheep! It is so sad that they get lost though. On Friday I went through the ward member sheets to try to find hers. It was sad to see how many lost sheep there are. About 2/3 of the teaching records are people who are no longer on the ward list because no one could contact them.
After our mind boggling appointment with Vineta we went to the new Relief Society President's home. Ruta had yummy "bab food" as Elder Lynch calls it. Zelma, another member had come over for a visit so we taught both of them the importance of visiting teaching. "It is summer. We don't do that here during the summer! No time!" Jinkies! We gave her a list of all the women in Relief Society so she can make assignments. She and Zelma were looking at it and started telling us all the info on everyone. It is sad how many people don't come to church because of a miscommunication that offended them. Santa's meeting was eventful as usual. We were talking about the ten commandments. "Oh! I know those! Word of Wisdom, go to church, give talks, celibacy..." "It is the law of chastity Santa, you can get married and stuff." "Yeah, yeah, celibacy." We then taught her the real ten commandments, but I won't lie, I really liked hers. Thursday we also went to try to find the referral that Uldis gave us. Problem is he lives in a large apartment building and we don't know his apartment number, nor his native language, Russian. It should be quite the adventure trying to find him!
Friday was my name day! (My real one, not in April like we thought). Happy name day to me! I made myself cupcakes. We met with Astride again. She was so much happier and looking better. She still wants us to go with her and take her to the airport and live with her though. I'm worried that if we did she would lock us out and make us go out and party in the evenings. We had a neat district meeting. We learned some of the new mission rules. First rule: smile once each day. (tangent: I'm kind of sad it is only once a day. I'm just going to pretend that it means wake up and smile and keep it on until the end of the day!) The other is more news. 1. We are all getting DVD players for our apartments. We will be able to watch The District, The Restoration, and one or two other church films. Moscow mission is getting to do the pilot programs with ipads. I am so jealous! They are going to do area book work online so that the mission president and stake presidents, etc. can have access to it as well. I hope that happens for everyone soon. I think we youngsters would keep a lot better track of people if it was on a computers [and save the trees!]. We learned that a new focus we will have is having good studies. I really like President Boswell's focus on Preach My Gospel. It is such a great resource we all have as members of the church.
Saturday we got to go out running again (after a very long period of not running which caused much sadness in my land) and so naturally something interesting happened. There is a huge music festival and so there were many drunk young persons roaming around the streets at 6:30am. And pretty much all weekend. English class was only Santa and Viktoria again. They are a fun little class. We went and visited Lidija, a member in the evening. She fell in her kitchen "Like a ball! I've never fallen like that in my life. I don't know how I did it. Ha ha ha." She was pretty epic in the best sense of the word. Her head was still hurting so she tried lying on different pillows and then wrapping a scarf around her head. At that point Sister F. just burst out laughing. By the end of our visit she had born a sweet testimony and her head was feeling better. So neat!
Sunday was good. No surprises. Church was fine and dinner was lovely, naturally (cous cous with carrots and carmelized onions if you were wondering). We went out contacting. No one too interesting to report on.
I love you all! The church is true!
Bisous!
Soeur Lindstrom
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Week 22
Mari and Sister Ferrin
Monday was the best preparation day lunch ever! Madara came with us and we ate at the Pastnieka Maja. I love that place and their garden outside was so beautiful. I got some carrot and spinach soup that was to die for as well as Rataouille that had olives in it (odd). Madara showed us this store run by Indians (from India). They had clothing and incense and all sorts of stuff from India. Sister Ferrin found some pretty epic genie pants for 30$. Rita helped us go to visit Artvis, that cute old man we contacted into last week whose wife passed away. He was the nicest fellow ever but not interested in the gospel, just having company. He was so cute though! He bought us cookies and chocolate and cut out a picture from the newspaper to show us. He also told us about his crazy downstairs neighbor who goes swimming in the sea every morning and comes to visit him every week and tries to convert him. It was the exorcists! It was pretty funny talking to him about his special neighbor. A funny drunk Russian man was hitting on Sister Ferrin the way there. "You have wife? You wife?" "I don't understand." The man then proceeds to ask Rita how to say husband in English. "You have husband? I be husband!" You've got to love when members help people hit on your companion. It was pretty darn funny; glad it wasn't me!
On Tuesday in District Meeting I was practicing with Elder Holdaway. He did a great job. He replaced my investigator name in the sacrament prayers. It was a really powerful experience. I recommend doing it (in your mind) next Sunday as you hear the sacrament prayers. It makes Christ's sacrifice for us all a lot more personal. Oskars forgot what time it was so he was 30 minutes late to his meeting. Luckily Sarra and Ieva kept us entertained. They insisted that we dance to MoTab. They were so hilarious, wanting to be dipped and twirled. We also had some good chit chats with Madara and Rita.
Wednesday morning (far too early for my liking) we headed up to Riga so Sister Ferrin could get some blood work as well as her migration done. I got to head off with Sister Stout (my favorite Russian-speaking sister ever!) and my bubbly blonde friend Sister Wilson. Sister Stout did a great job teaching a lesson in Russian about the prophet. We then met up with the sisters at the doctors; they had taken the apartment keys and Sister Stout was sick. We found out we were staying the night! Sister Ferrin was supposed to fast. I knew I should have listened to that prompting and told her to fast anyway! Needless to say, it made for a fun adventure, no clothes, no toothbrush, no worries. I got to go out contacting with Sister Wilson for a little bit and then I stayed in with Sister Stout while the other three went out and we got to talk and eat brownies and ice cream with raspberries...mmmm! Poor Sister Ferrin came home quite ill. We had to call the assistants to give her a blessing and then she spent a while more bowing to the porcelain throne. Priesthood blessings work wonders in making you puke!
Thursday morning we headed out to get the blood test done as well as a donut. Yes, there is one donut shop in all of Riga and naturally the missionaries know about it. We finally got home later in the afternoon to a rainstorm, our hot water still off (had been since Tuesday), and our phone not working. Luckily we were meeting with Santa, so none of those factors mattered. We watched the Restoration with her. She is hilarious! "Ciao Joseph!" "Did he really like horses?" "Wooooww!" (when Joseph saw God).
Friday was another special day....we went to Lithuania! We took a bus and headed down to Klaipeda to meet with two sisters from Kaunus to do a switcheroo for the weekend. We got to go around rainy Klaipeda trying to find all the different statues and such randomly hidden throughout the city. I found an amazing restaurant called Le Cle (the key in French). The chef there has a new menu every week and they have this awesome garlic spread and bread station. The waitress gives you a cutting board and you can go and get more whenever you desire. If I ever own a business of some sort, I think I will call it Le Cle too. We headed back to the bus station through the sculpture park (over 100 sculptures) and met the sisters. We went with them to get pizza and ice cream and headed back to the bus station. Sister Ferrin and Edgin left but Sister G and my bus didn't come! It came two hours late so we got to go out and see more of the city and then come back before our bus got in. The bus driver stopped in Palanga, this beach town where everyone and I mean EVERYONE goes during the summer. There were so many people walking down the sidewalk by all the restaurants and booths that we couldn't get to the beach fast enough to make it back for our bus. We bought waffles on a stick that were dipped in chocolate syrup instead. I guess I really liked Palanga, because I left my tag there. We noticed that it fell off but there were really sooooooooo many people we never would have found it. Lots of families and couples were there. I guess it is tradition in Lithuania to bring your date a flower so there were many girls selling very long stemmed red roses in Palanga. Sister Grinevachute (sounds like green apple juice) and I got back home a little bit before 11pm and headed off to bed.
We woke up for an exciting day of Russian! Sister G. taught me some Russian and I taught her some Latvian and then we went out contacting and taught Santa and her friend Viktoria in English. We couldn't get Viktoria to take a copy of the Book of Mormon...bummer. We did teach them head-shoulders-knees-and-toes and they also loved drawing monsters to practice using body part vocabulary. We met with Nadezda and Sister G taught her in Russian about service. We came home to a smelly house. I started heating up some beans this morning and forgot to turn off the stove when we left. Oopsie! Well, we had black beans, that was for sure! I double check the stove now. We met with Rita and gave her some ideas for her talk tomorrow and then we went out knocking. We did pretty good picking Russian domes...only one person spoke Latvian that answered the door (and they were Russian). We had one lady who said we could come back next week. Too bad she only speaks Russian! It was nice to get out and work though. I didn't really have to clean the church today. Sintija came and was helping and told us that her dad was in Greece. EEKS! Her dad was supposed to be driving us to Lithuania tomorrow. Elder Holdaway went into battle plan mode and the last member who owns a car said they could help us. God answers prayers!
Mari and Sister Grinevachute
After church Kaspars, the ward mission leader, drove Sister G., Madara, and me to Klaipeda. Twenty minutes in he realized he didn't have his drivers lisence so we had to go back. And then there was traffic. In the woods. THE WOODS. So we were stuck in the woods for about 30 minutes stop and go traffic (reason? PALANGA!) but we made it to Klaipeda to switch partners and take Elder Hengst up with us. He is a nice elder from Germany who is going up with our elders to a training meeting on Monday.
Church was quite the event. That angel wing/lei man came. He took off his wig when he got inside today and the elders had four investigators! I sat with this sweet old 83-year-old that they invited to church last night. She was hard of hearing and basically yelled right before the sacrament prayer, "I'm hard of hearing but I can feel God's peace." While they were passing the bread she asked me if she could take it. "I've been blessed and baptized." "Of course!" I helped her take the water since her hands were so shaky. It was quite a humbling experience. The poor woman feels like she is dying and her daughter and granddaughter died. Rita's talk was amazing! I wanted to get her a standing ovation I was so proud. It was the best talk by far during sacrament meeting. Relief Society was interesting. We were talking about family responsibilities and we got talking about peoples' childhoods and during Stalin's reign and such. I am glad I was born where I was with the wonderful family, ward family, and friends that I have. May God bless you all.
Love,
Sister Lindstrom
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Week 21
Monday July 11, 2011
I'm so glad that you all have a wonderful Fourth of July. It sounded much more epic than ours. Rihards showed up to lunch at Fontaine's for hamburgers with a striped jean shirt, an American flag tie, and socks that said USA on them. It was the most awful thing I have ever seen in my life. He said that people kept on staring at him as he was walking. I don't blame them. We ate our hamburgers and fries out on the dock and Rihards got us all talking about music because he wanted to know to what we liked to listen. Sister Ferrin and I were very close to convincing Rihards to get a pedicure with us. Sister Ferrin has been wanting one since April and we didn't have anything to do so we asked him where you can get pedicures. He then recommended the place which he frequents. I may or may not have started laughing. Out loud. He then proceeded to tell us how healthy it is and how it is normal for men and women to get them. He also said if men don't go out they'd still probably do them and not let their wife know. He proceeded to act out a scenario of a husband giving himself a pedicure in the bathroom and trying to hide it from his wife. He's a funny Latvian. We went out with Annika to go visit a Russian less active that lived in the middle of nowhere after we met with Oskars. She wasn't home!! Annika didn't seem to bothered by it and she brought us Fourth of July gifts (as did Rihards). Funny Latvians. I'm pretty sure they were more excited about the holiday than we were with our glowstick bracelets. We are enjoying the cooler (cross your fingers) so far summer weather and fruits. Strawberry season just ended and now we are on to cherries and blueberries at the market.
On Tuesday I found my favorite talk for the month, "One Step After Another" by J.B. Wirthlin. We had a lively district meeting about to be and to do (based off of the talk from the past session of conference). The highlight of my Tuesday was visiting Daina. She is a member who served a mission, but we haven't felt that she likes us very much. Sister Ferrin used her mad friend making skills though and now we are just buddy pals. I was so nervous to go to her apartment at first, but it all got worked out.
Wednesday was a fun day. In the evening we got to play floor ball with the hooligans and Ingus and his brothers (Lauris and Raivo). Maxims my favorite 10-year-old friend was out pretending to be an airplane and then a cat. He then proceeded to make faces at me. I wish he could come play with us, his parents won't allow it. I scored a goal or two even! Woot! I also used my mad phone calling skills and called about 40 former English class participants and asked them if they wanted to come to English or visit with missionaries. I could totally work in a call center. We met with Rita and went over the Plan of Salvation before sports and before that we went and had a little tea time fun at Zelma Golta's apartment. She made us pancakes and we had them with honey and tart cherry jam. It was an interesting lesson...Zelma somehow got on a tangent about this lady in Latvia who would see people's deaths before they happened. Our lesson was on charity and missionary work. I'm still not quite sure how that happened. Liga got interviewed and passed! Woot! She was pretty funny when we were going through them with her before. "Of course I believe that otherwise I wouldn't be here." Well duh!
On Thursday we had planning and I did some piano practicing. Santa is a hoot and a half. We were talking about the plan of salvation and she thought that when we are ressurected it will be like zombies. She then proceeded to act like a zombie. We cleared that up. It is so fun to watch her grow! She is getting happier every day and is letting her sparkling personality show..
Friday was spent trying to figure out our lives....at least how to get to Lithuania! There is a sister from Lithuania serving there and they are having a big party and she can't go because all her friends will be there so she is coming up to Liepaja with me and Sister Ferrin gets to go down to Lithuania for a few days. There aren't a lot of busses or anything that go there so it takes a lot of planning, especially since it is going to a different country! We had an eventful night contacting. We went to Dzintara iela (Gold Street...how fitting). This one old lady, Sofia, let us straight in, regardless of her lack of clothing (Thank you whoever invented bathrobes) and wants to read The Book of Mormon (although she wouldn't take it). She wants to meet with us again so that is exciting. We also had two men invite us in. We couldn't because of the rule of three (curses!). One has had missionaries over before, but he doesn't believe and his wife died. We told him he could live with her again and that we wanted to talk about it. It is hard having to tell people you can't come in and teach them something that would make them so happy! The second man was a Lutheran in his 30s with shoulder length shiny brown hair. He has a family and with Sister Ferrin's looks and my persistant testifying he was like, "Okay, fine. Come in. I'm interested now." The next apartment we got invited into we shouldn't have gone in either. It was this Pentecostal prayer group who were well versed in the Bible and Book of Mormon. Just so you all know, I have a different bad spirit about me, but I told him he couldn't perform an exorcism and that I'd just tell my pastor person about it instead. We did stay for a prayer though. They were so very kind and asked God to forgive us since we don't know what we are doing. The head hancho man (it was this cute 50 year old peppy lady who answered the door) spoke in tongues, asked why we couldn't and wanted to touch my head when he was praying. It was interesting and I was glad to go. I am so grateful that we don't tell people they are satanic and make them feel awkward when we pray. It is definitely not God's way.
English class was funny today. The dentist wasn't there but some man who thought we should teach Russian was. Santa came and brought her friend Viktoria. It was so neat to see Santa show her around the church and just their interactions with each other. We were talking to Santa about our coloring homework from Ieva and then she said that she wanted some so we got her a coloring page too! (Although this week Ieva told me that I needed to go gardening in lieu of giving me a coloring page. She is a pretty funny girl.) We cleaned the church, just us four missionaries today and then we had Liga's baptism. I played prelude and postlude and President Scer. had us missionaries sing a musical number. He wanted just the sisters, but we insisted that the elders sing along (and thank heavens too because Elder Clark is the only one who really knows how to sing). Liga had to get dunked twice...poor lady. The first time her legs were thrashing and we thought President was drowning her. She brought two friends. One of them was crying after the baptism and asked, "Can we get baptised right now too?" She took home a Book of Mormon.
Sunday was a day of crepe making! We had 48 people at church today...a record! It helped that we had this gorgeous 17-year-old from Seattle and her exchange friend. They are doing this program where they spend a month at eachother's homes. I was able to translate a really good sacrament meeting for her. One of the talks was in Russian so I had to translate it from the translation a member was telling me. There were definitely a lot of things lost in translation! The District President gave an excellent talk on tithing though. Sunday School was good and Relief Society was almost a wreck talking about the temple. One member started asking about having multiple husbands (since they died) and if she could get sealed to both of them...aye aye aye! We also had Branch council...in Russian. Sunday night we met with Madara because she is having a hard time. Sister Ferrin was able to help her out while I chased around little Elizabeth that she is babysitting on weekends.
I had a great study this morning about our purpose on earth. Here's some homework!
2 Nephi 2:11; 10:23-24; 25:23
Alma 34:31-34
Romans 6:23
Galatians 6:7-9
Abraham 3:25
Matthew 6:33, 16:24-26
The church is true! Christ is our Savior and Redeemer!
Love, Sister Lindstrom
I'm so glad that you all have a wonderful Fourth of July. It sounded much more epic than ours. Rihards showed up to lunch at Fontaine's for hamburgers with a striped jean shirt, an American flag tie, and socks that said USA on them. It was the most awful thing I have ever seen in my life. He said that people kept on staring at him as he was walking. I don't blame them. We ate our hamburgers and fries out on the dock and Rihards got us all talking about music because he wanted to know to what we liked to listen. Sister Ferrin and I were very close to convincing Rihards to get a pedicure with us. Sister Ferrin has been wanting one since April and we didn't have anything to do so we asked him where you can get pedicures. He then recommended the place which he frequents. I may or may not have started laughing. Out loud. He then proceeded to tell us how healthy it is and how it is normal for men and women to get them. He also said if men don't go out they'd still probably do them and not let their wife know. He proceeded to act out a scenario of a husband giving himself a pedicure in the bathroom and trying to hide it from his wife. He's a funny Latvian. We went out with Annika to go visit a Russian less active that lived in the middle of nowhere after we met with Oskars. She wasn't home!! Annika didn't seem to bothered by it and she brought us Fourth of July gifts (as did Rihards). Funny Latvians. I'm pretty sure they were more excited about the holiday than we were with our glowstick bracelets. We are enjoying the cooler (cross your fingers) so far summer weather and fruits. Strawberry season just ended and now we are on to cherries and blueberries at the market.
On Tuesday I found my favorite talk for the month, "One Step After Another" by J.B. Wirthlin. We had a lively district meeting about to be and to do (based off of the talk from the past session of conference). The highlight of my Tuesday was visiting Daina. She is a member who served a mission, but we haven't felt that she likes us very much. Sister Ferrin used her mad friend making skills though and now we are just buddy pals. I was so nervous to go to her apartment at first, but it all got worked out.
Wednesday was a fun day. In the evening we got to play floor ball with the hooligans and Ingus and his brothers (Lauris and Raivo). Maxims my favorite 10-year-old friend was out pretending to be an airplane and then a cat. He then proceeded to make faces at me. I wish he could come play with us, his parents won't allow it. I scored a goal or two even! Woot! I also used my mad phone calling skills and called about 40 former English class participants and asked them if they wanted to come to English or visit with missionaries. I could totally work in a call center. We met with Rita and went over the Plan of Salvation before sports and before that we went and had a little tea time fun at Zelma Golta's apartment. She made us pancakes and we had them with honey and tart cherry jam. It was an interesting lesson...Zelma somehow got on a tangent about this lady in Latvia who would see people's deaths before they happened. Our lesson was on charity and missionary work. I'm still not quite sure how that happened. Liga got interviewed and passed! Woot! She was pretty funny when we were going through them with her before. "Of course I believe that otherwise I wouldn't be here." Well duh!
On Thursday we had planning and I did some piano practicing. Santa is a hoot and a half. We were talking about the plan of salvation and she thought that when we are ressurected it will be like zombies. She then proceeded to act like a zombie. We cleared that up. It is so fun to watch her grow! She is getting happier every day and is letting her sparkling personality show..
Friday was spent trying to figure out our lives....at least how to get to Lithuania! There is a sister from Lithuania serving there and they are having a big party and she can't go because all her friends will be there so she is coming up to Liepaja with me and Sister Ferrin gets to go down to Lithuania for a few days. There aren't a lot of busses or anything that go there so it takes a lot of planning, especially since it is going to a different country! We had an eventful night contacting. We went to Dzintara iela (Gold Street...how fitting). This one old lady, Sofia, let us straight in, regardless of her lack of clothing (Thank you whoever invented bathrobes) and wants to read The Book of Mormon (although she wouldn't take it). She wants to meet with us again so that is exciting. We also had two men invite us in. We couldn't because of the rule of three (curses!). One has had missionaries over before, but he doesn't believe and his wife died. We told him he could live with her again and that we wanted to talk about it. It is hard having to tell people you can't come in and teach them something that would make them so happy! The second man was a Lutheran in his 30s with shoulder length shiny brown hair. He has a family and with Sister Ferrin's looks and my persistant testifying he was like, "Okay, fine. Come in. I'm interested now." The next apartment we got invited into we shouldn't have gone in either. It was this Pentecostal prayer group who were well versed in the Bible and Book of Mormon. Just so you all know, I have a different bad spirit about me, but I told him he couldn't perform an exorcism and that I'd just tell my pastor person about it instead. We did stay for a prayer though. They were so very kind and asked God to forgive us since we don't know what we are doing. The head hancho man (it was this cute 50 year old peppy lady who answered the door) spoke in tongues, asked why we couldn't and wanted to touch my head when he was praying. It was interesting and I was glad to go. I am so grateful that we don't tell people they are satanic and make them feel awkward when we pray. It is definitely not God's way.
English class was funny today. The dentist wasn't there but some man who thought we should teach Russian was. Santa came and brought her friend Viktoria. It was so neat to see Santa show her around the church and just their interactions with each other. We were talking to Santa about our coloring homework from Ieva and then she said that she wanted some so we got her a coloring page too! (Although this week Ieva told me that I needed to go gardening in lieu of giving me a coloring page. She is a pretty funny girl.) We cleaned the church, just us four missionaries today and then we had Liga's baptism. I played prelude and postlude and President Scer. had us missionaries sing a musical number. He wanted just the sisters, but we insisted that the elders sing along (and thank heavens too because Elder Clark is the only one who really knows how to sing). Liga had to get dunked twice...poor lady. The first time her legs were thrashing and we thought President was drowning her. She brought two friends. One of them was crying after the baptism and asked, "Can we get baptised right now too?" She took home a Book of Mormon.
Sunday was a day of crepe making! We had 48 people at church today...a record! It helped that we had this gorgeous 17-year-old from Seattle and her exchange friend. They are doing this program where they spend a month at eachother's homes. I was able to translate a really good sacrament meeting for her. One of the talks was in Russian so I had to translate it from the translation a member was telling me. There were definitely a lot of things lost in translation! The District President gave an excellent talk on tithing though. Sunday School was good and Relief Society was almost a wreck talking about the temple. One member started asking about having multiple husbands (since they died) and if she could get sealed to both of them...aye aye aye! We also had Branch council...in Russian. Sunday night we met with Madara because she is having a hard time. Sister Ferrin was able to help her out while I chased around little Elizabeth that she is babysitting on weekends.
I had a great study this morning about our purpose on earth. Here's some homework!
2 Nephi 2:11; 10:23-24; 25:23
Alma 34:31-34
Romans 6:23
Galatians 6:7-9
Abraham 3:25
Matthew 6:33, 16:24-26
The church is true! Christ is our Savior and Redeemer!
Love, Sister Lindstrom
Monday, July 4, 2011
Week 20
(don't forget to enjoy the pictures at the end of Mari's letter)
July 4, 2011 from Mari
Hello hello from sunny Liepaja! We have actually had a lot of rainstorms this past week but that is fine with me because it keeps the world cool. Modest is hottest has taken on a new meaning and humidity doesn't help. I sure am grateful for air conditioning...next summer!
Monday's preparation day was just what I needed. We went to the beach at Karosta where there are all the old forts. I would have contently sat all day on a pile of rocks looking for sea glass, but we had to go past the beach to the forts so that Elder Clark could see them. It was a lot more mellow of an adventure since we didn't have half the ward this time; just Madara, Rita, and Sintija. Those girls brought Sister Ferrin a piece of cake for her year mark and we all sang to her while inside of one of the forts that had been pushed into the sea. We were able to do another family home evening with the Tolmacovi. We made a Plan of Salvation puzzle for Selina the six-year-old to do. She really liked it and I think that her parents have gotten the hint that they should come back to church. Afterwards we were able to go knocking back at the "dome" (or apartment complex) that we had gone to with Madara a few weeks back. We felt pretty dumb trying to get in. It was unlocked though we thought it was locked and we didn't have the code. A man who lived there in English said, "You just have to turn the handle, it is open." DOH! We felt silly, but we did get in. That lady that we had visited wasn't there, but we talked to a great old man whose dentures were almost falling out of his mouth when he spoke. He kept on telling us that his wife was angry that he was talking to us. It was true, when they shut the door she started yelling at him for talking to "those Mormon girls." Oh how life is funny sometimes.
On Tuesday we went to Mara's house to hunt her down. She was one of our baptismal dates, but we haven't spoken to her for a while now. We didn't find her, but I did speak to this old lady who was looking for a new church because she just couldn't go to the Catholic Church anymore. She was nice and I hope that we see her again. We had a lesson with Oskars which went well. The little girls Sarra and Ieva were there so before Oskar's lesson they made me play hide and go seek with them. They thought I was pretty clever since they couldn’t find me. Sarra tried to stick her hat on Elder Clark's head, it was quite humorous watching this all happen and meeting with Liga was great. We were a little worried about it, but she reads the Book of Mormon every night and has a testimony of Joseph Smith!
On Wednesday I made some of Aunt Joyce's indian fry bread. Boy is it good! It is in between a scone and a tortilla and may be our new "scone" dough recipe, we really enjoyed them. I called all of the former investigators from one of the area books (except those that had been met with in the past 3 months) and we also met some great people contacting in the evening. By the tram was Professor Trelawny from Harry Potter. Minus the hair, a lot smaller, and with the same big glasses and was very soft spoken. She was so great! She was telling us how we should get bikes and do the Tour de France of the Baltics and talk to the people following that and that we should get a small bus to go pick up people from the country and bring them to church. She recommended that we have dances and parties and just share our knowledge with others. My favorite thing that she said was, "God is like the sun. If he shines, he shines on everyone." We talked to a beautiful lady in her 30s who had two children. She called them her gifts from God and she definitely knows what life is about. She sells strawberries at the market and lives across from the church. We are hoping to see her again...we almost got an appointment set up with her. We had sports night tonight with the elders, Rihards, and the hoolies. Rita was there since we had just had a meeting with her but she didn't really play since she doesn't like floor ball (aka floor hockey). I am considerably better at playing hockey now and I am not going to wear a skirt next time!
On Thursday Rihards helped us with Latvian and we had our weekly planning session. Sister Ferrin made some epic canvas book covers for her scriptures and we had a meeting with Santa. We had Rihards along and actually had our lesson about the temples this time. Oh goodness, I love Santa! When we talked about eternal marriage she was just like, "Oh my goodness! Thank heavens my husband is gone. I would never do that with him. He couldn't ever be a member anyway, no way." We had a great lesson with the Beldavi boys and mom about putting on the whole armor of God. Raivo was his hyper little monkey self bouncing around and Lauris is just the cutest little kid.
Friday we met the Boswells. Words cannot express how much I LOVE THE BOSWELLS! President Boswell has so much energy and is so much fun and Sister Boswell is very composed and refined. President Boswell talked about how they got their calling and priesthood keys. He talked about how keys are passed and that he shares the keys to find, nurture, and fellowship with the Branch Presidents so that we need to work with them a lot. He, as President, has been instructed to spend 50% of his time with missionaries and the other 50% with the Branches and the members. He is just so fun, I love him! It seems like the Boswell's theme of missionary work will be based off "What ere thou art act well they part"......As missionaries we should match the grandeur of the message that we teach. Sister Boswell's dad saved that rock that is in the MTC from Scotland that says that. You can look it up about D.O. McKay
Some quotes from President Boswell from others...
Elder Clayton "This is the best run mission that I've ever seen in the church."
Elder D.H. Oaks "It's been my experience that the Lord sends His very best missionaries to the Baltic Mission."
Yeah, the Boswells have rubbed shoulders with lots of prophets and apostles. Sister Boswell has some major connections with them. Her dad was a mission president in Scotland so Elder Lynch LOVES them. On Monday we were also able to visit the ring man. I had him make me a ring out of a spoon and I gave it to Sister Stout today, she loved it. She is currently in a three-some with the sisters in Center. Those lucky masas!
My interview with him (President Boswell) was awesome. It is nice having a priesthood leader who you really feel like they care for you and just get down and dirty to help you be better.
We went to More than Muffins afterwards and got paninis and blueberry muffins and then we all attempted to sleep on the hot bus ride home. God loves us so he sent a storm! It was a huge thunderstorm.
Saturday was busy as always. We visited Ena, taught English, and cleaned the church. Only the Russian Dentist came to our English class today so we went over words and phrases she needs in the dentist office, I was her practice patient, and that was that. We got caught in the rain going to a meeting. It was so fun! I just laughed the whole way. We had a meeting with Liga and it went really well. It was basically a crash course on ALL the commandments that she needs to follow to be baptized. Marika helped which was great. We talked with Marika about missionary work afterwards.
Sunday was a great meeting. I was sitting by Ieva who is learning to read so she loves to sing. She would always belt out, "DON'T FORGET TO PRAY!" I had to try really hard to keep my laughing on the inside because it was so stinking cute! Santa taught the lesson in Relief Society! Our Santa who hates praying in public! I felt like a proud mom watching her, she did a great job. After we broke our fast I had a three hour call-a-thon. I have officially called all the phone numbers in the "Former Investigators- Phone numbers only - Lots of Janes" area book and started going through round two. I was able to practice the piano and singing a little bit at the church before our lesson with Rita. I'll have you know that I am improving. :) Yay for practicing! Poor Rita is not a happy one right now. Her brother is paralyzed for life now and she is mad at the world. We watched Finding Faith in Christ with her.
Happy Fourth of July! Enjoy the air conditioning and fireworks! We are planning on having hamburgers today to celebrate!
ML
July 4, 2011 from Mari
Hello hello from sunny Liepaja! We have actually had a lot of rainstorms this past week but that is fine with me because it keeps the world cool. Modest is hottest has taken on a new meaning and humidity doesn't help. I sure am grateful for air conditioning...next summer!
Monday's preparation day was just what I needed. We went to the beach at Karosta where there are all the old forts. I would have contently sat all day on a pile of rocks looking for sea glass, but we had to go past the beach to the forts so that Elder Clark could see them. It was a lot more mellow of an adventure since we didn't have half the ward this time; just Madara, Rita, and Sintija. Those girls brought Sister Ferrin a piece of cake for her year mark and we all sang to her while inside of one of the forts that had been pushed into the sea. We were able to do another family home evening with the Tolmacovi. We made a Plan of Salvation puzzle for Selina the six-year-old to do. She really liked it and I think that her parents have gotten the hint that they should come back to church. Afterwards we were able to go knocking back at the "dome" (or apartment complex) that we had gone to with Madara a few weeks back. We felt pretty dumb trying to get in. It was unlocked though we thought it was locked and we didn't have the code. A man who lived there in English said, "You just have to turn the handle, it is open." DOH! We felt silly, but we did get in. That lady that we had visited wasn't there, but we talked to a great old man whose dentures were almost falling out of his mouth when he spoke. He kept on telling us that his wife was angry that he was talking to us. It was true, when they shut the door she started yelling at him for talking to "those Mormon girls." Oh how life is funny sometimes.
On Tuesday we went to Mara's house to hunt her down. She was one of our baptismal dates, but we haven't spoken to her for a while now. We didn't find her, but I did speak to this old lady who was looking for a new church because she just couldn't go to the Catholic Church anymore. She was nice and I hope that we see her again. We had a lesson with Oskars which went well. The little girls Sarra and Ieva were there so before Oskar's lesson they made me play hide and go seek with them. They thought I was pretty clever since they couldn’t find me. Sarra tried to stick her hat on Elder Clark's head, it was quite humorous watching this all happen and meeting with Liga was great. We were a little worried about it, but she reads the Book of Mormon every night and has a testimony of Joseph Smith!
On Wednesday I made some of Aunt Joyce's indian fry bread. Boy is it good! It is in between a scone and a tortilla and may be our new "scone" dough recipe, we really enjoyed them. I called all of the former investigators from one of the area books (except those that had been met with in the past 3 months) and we also met some great people contacting in the evening. By the tram was Professor Trelawny from Harry Potter. Minus the hair, a lot smaller, and with the same big glasses and was very soft spoken. She was so great! She was telling us how we should get bikes and do the Tour de France of the Baltics and talk to the people following that and that we should get a small bus to go pick up people from the country and bring them to church. She recommended that we have dances and parties and just share our knowledge with others. My favorite thing that she said was, "God is like the sun. If he shines, he shines on everyone." We talked to a beautiful lady in her 30s who had two children. She called them her gifts from God and she definitely knows what life is about. She sells strawberries at the market and lives across from the church. We are hoping to see her again...we almost got an appointment set up with her. We had sports night tonight with the elders, Rihards, and the hoolies. Rita was there since we had just had a meeting with her but she didn't really play since she doesn't like floor ball (aka floor hockey). I am considerably better at playing hockey now and I am not going to wear a skirt next time!
On Thursday Rihards helped us with Latvian and we had our weekly planning session. Sister Ferrin made some epic canvas book covers for her scriptures and we had a meeting with Santa. We had Rihards along and actually had our lesson about the temples this time. Oh goodness, I love Santa! When we talked about eternal marriage she was just like, "Oh my goodness! Thank heavens my husband is gone. I would never do that with him. He couldn't ever be a member anyway, no way." We had a great lesson with the Beldavi boys and mom about putting on the whole armor of God. Raivo was his hyper little monkey self bouncing around and Lauris is just the cutest little kid.
Friday we met the Boswells. Words cannot express how much I LOVE THE BOSWELLS! President Boswell has so much energy and is so much fun and Sister Boswell is very composed and refined. President Boswell talked about how they got their calling and priesthood keys. He talked about how keys are passed and that he shares the keys to find, nurture, and fellowship with the Branch Presidents so that we need to work with them a lot. He, as President, has been instructed to spend 50% of his time with missionaries and the other 50% with the Branches and the members. He is just so fun, I love him! It seems like the Boswell's theme of missionary work will be based off "What ere thou art act well they part"......As missionaries we should match the grandeur of the message that we teach. Sister Boswell's dad saved that rock that is in the MTC from Scotland that says that. You can look it up about D.O. McKay
Some quotes from President Boswell from others...
Elder Clayton "This is the best run mission that I've ever seen in the church."
Elder D.H. Oaks "It's been my experience that the Lord sends His very best missionaries to the Baltic Mission."
Yeah, the Boswells have rubbed shoulders with lots of prophets and apostles. Sister Boswell has some major connections with them. Her dad was a mission president in Scotland so Elder Lynch LOVES them. On Monday we were also able to visit the ring man. I had him make me a ring out of a spoon and I gave it to Sister Stout today, she loved it. She is currently in a three-some with the sisters in Center. Those lucky masas!
My interview with him (President Boswell) was awesome. It is nice having a priesthood leader who you really feel like they care for you and just get down and dirty to help you be better.
We went to More than Muffins afterwards and got paninis and blueberry muffins and then we all attempted to sleep on the hot bus ride home. God loves us so he sent a storm! It was a huge thunderstorm.
Saturday was busy as always. We visited Ena, taught English, and cleaned the church. Only the Russian Dentist came to our English class today so we went over words and phrases she needs in the dentist office, I was her practice patient, and that was that. We got caught in the rain going to a meeting. It was so fun! I just laughed the whole way. We had a meeting with Liga and it went really well. It was basically a crash course on ALL the commandments that she needs to follow to be baptized. Marika helped which was great. We talked with Marika about missionary work afterwards.
Sunday was a great meeting. I was sitting by Ieva who is learning to read so she loves to sing. She would always belt out, "DON'T FORGET TO PRAY!" I had to try really hard to keep my laughing on the inside because it was so stinking cute! Santa taught the lesson in Relief Society! Our Santa who hates praying in public! I felt like a proud mom watching her, she did a great job. After we broke our fast I had a three hour call-a-thon. I have officially called all the phone numbers in the "Former Investigators- Phone numbers only - Lots of Janes" area book and started going through round two. I was able to practice the piano and singing a little bit at the church before our lesson with Rita. I'll have you know that I am improving. :) Yay for practicing! Poor Rita is not a happy one right now. Her brother is paralyzed for life now and she is mad at the world. We watched Finding Faith in Christ with her.
Happy Fourth of July! Enjoy the air conditioning and fireworks! We are planning on having hamburgers today to celebrate!
ML
Monday, June 27, 2011
Week 19
Well Hello and Happy Summer Solstice aka LIGO!
On Monday for Preparation day we went out with the elders and Rihards to Cepelini, a small restaurant/bar type place and all got flatted out battered chicken on a bed of a million potato wedges. It was pretty good and very Latvian. We also went around and visited all the churches in Liepaja- the one we look at every day and the Lutheran church with the largest organ in Europe, or so they say. (note: it was the largest mechanical pipe organ in the world until 1968). Good thing that they haven't seen MoTab's organ. We also went around and saw all the statues about Liepaja being the city where the wind starts. They have a really pretty poem about it. We had a family home evening with the Tolmacovi. They have two cute little girls (baby and a 6 year old) and our goal is to get them to the temple.
On Tuesday we found out that Elder Lynch is headed off to Jelgava and that Elder Clark (who has been an assistant stuck in Riga forever) is coming down to spend his last transfer in Liepaja (his first time out of Riga). Sister Ferrin and I will still be in the magical land of Liepaja. To celebrate we force fed Elder Lynch Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. He does not appreciate powdered cheese like we fellow Americans do. We had a meeting with Oskars but he didn't show up. We ended up giving his lesson to Rita, the member who came to help and it was just what she needed. Her brother just got paralyzed and we were planning on talking to Oskars about trials. We also had a miracle with visiting Ena, the less-active. We were up in her area and called to see if we could drop by. She said yes and we had a nice chat outside and she asked for a new Book of Mormon since she couldn't find hers! She also told us that Jolanta, her daughter (also a member), was in the hospital with her baby who has RSV.
With that knowledge after having an entertaining Latvian class with Rihards (he thought we said "Sharks!" instead of "Shucks!") we headed off to the hospital. Sister Ferrin warned me of the sketchiness, so I was pleasantly surprised. Having a nurse in sandals would never fly in America though. It was definitely an older building, but they kept it fairly clean. We talked with Jolanta and then the elders came and gave her and her baby a blessing. We met with Santa today and it was another adventure. The cat (aka crocodile) attacked the dog. My legs went flying and so did dog hair, but we all made it out alive. Definitely scared us all though. She also told us about Ligo and how it is a Pagan celebration and how the girls' wreaths symbolize virtue (and so if a boy takes it or if their hair isn't in tight braids you can assume some things). The boys' wreaths are made out of oak leaves and symbolize power and strength all that manly sort of stuff that you'd associate with oak trees and not really long grass.
Thursday was a great day since it was Ligo. We had some barley mushroom soup and met with Laima! She is back after the disaster with her husband. It was neat because she said she could feel our prayers and that she felt like it was okay to answer the phone when we called. She has such the spirit, I came away edified. She took home the Restoration video and is going to watch it with her husband. We are praying for his heart to soften. We had a small Ligo party at the church. We learned how to make the wreaths (or head gear---I don't know what to call them in English). We also ate, played games, and drank kvass (yuck!- look it up on Wikipedia). It was too windy for us to have a bonfire, but normally you jump over one so that the sun will behave normally.
On Saturday I found something really neat in my scripture study. Mosiah 27! Those hooligan sons of Mosiah who went about destroyed the church followed all six steps of the repentance process found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet. I was excited about this and so we taught Olga about repentance. She doesn't think she'll be in the country for her baptismal date... After our English class we cleaned the church as usual. Sintia cleaned the windows with anti-freeze. Let's just say that the elders cleaned them again. We also met with an awesome church member, Skaidre. She was one of the first in Liepaja and may quit one of her jobs (she has two) so that she can come to church more.
On Sunday we had a great show up to hear the Rubows talk (in charge of CES here). Laima, Liga (baptismal date), Rita (less active), Lidija (less active), the Tolmacovi family, etc. etc. We had to guard Sister Rubow's sloppy joes for the seminary graduation. Literally guard. We had rolling pins. It was awesome food though and then of course there was more missionary work. We went on splits again! Sister Ferrin went with Madara who is here for the week and I took Sintija (aka Cynthia) and Inguss with me. They were fun to go out with; Sintija is very giggly. We did have a great lesson on a park bench with a nice old lady who was willing to talk to us for five minutes! Miracles abound!
Also on Sunday Ieva and Olga dropped themselves. They don't have the desire right now to do what it takes. Later they will get baptized. Sister Ferrin found out she'll be leaving December 16th, so that is when I will begin training! She is a great missionary. President Dance told her in her interview that her mission scripture should be Alma 38:1-5. So I am with a Book of Mormon caliber missionary!
The work is going well, I love sharing the gospel with others. This is God's work and it is His glory.
Reflections on the past transfer...what I've learned.
Being a parent is hard. Infinite love, forgiveness.
Sharing and teamwork doesn't always mean 50/50
Never give up on people
You have to fight harder than Satan
"Do what you want and say what you feel because those that mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
COMMUNICATION
-it is important to say thank you
-preface your thoughts
-the importance of words
-always think before you speak
-be clear about what you are trying to communication
On Monday for Preparation day we went out with the elders and Rihards to Cepelini, a small restaurant/bar type place and all got flatted out battered chicken on a bed of a million potato wedges. It was pretty good and very Latvian. We also went around and visited all the churches in Liepaja- the one we look at every day and the Lutheran church with the largest organ in Europe, or so they say. (note: it was the largest mechanical pipe organ in the world until 1968). Good thing that they haven't seen MoTab's organ. We also went around and saw all the statues about Liepaja being the city where the wind starts. They have a really pretty poem about it. We had a family home evening with the Tolmacovi. They have two cute little girls (baby and a 6 year old) and our goal is to get them to the temple.
On Tuesday we found out that Elder Lynch is headed off to Jelgava and that Elder Clark (who has been an assistant stuck in Riga forever) is coming down to spend his last transfer in Liepaja (his first time out of Riga). Sister Ferrin and I will still be in the magical land of Liepaja. To celebrate we force fed Elder Lynch Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. He does not appreciate powdered cheese like we fellow Americans do. We had a meeting with Oskars but he didn't show up. We ended up giving his lesson to Rita, the member who came to help and it was just what she needed. Her brother just got paralyzed and we were planning on talking to Oskars about trials. We also had a miracle with visiting Ena, the less-active. We were up in her area and called to see if we could drop by. She said yes and we had a nice chat outside and she asked for a new Book of Mormon since she couldn't find hers! She also told us that Jolanta, her daughter (also a member), was in the hospital with her baby who has RSV.
With that knowledge after having an entertaining Latvian class with Rihards (he thought we said "Sharks!" instead of "Shucks!") we headed off to the hospital. Sister Ferrin warned me of the sketchiness, so I was pleasantly surprised. Having a nurse in sandals would never fly in America though. It was definitely an older building, but they kept it fairly clean. We talked with Jolanta and then the elders came and gave her and her baby a blessing. We met with Santa today and it was another adventure. The cat (aka crocodile) attacked the dog. My legs went flying and so did dog hair, but we all made it out alive. Definitely scared us all though. She also told us about Ligo and how it is a Pagan celebration and how the girls' wreaths symbolize virtue (and so if a boy takes it or if their hair isn't in tight braids you can assume some things). The boys' wreaths are made out of oak leaves and symbolize power and strength all that manly sort of stuff that you'd associate with oak trees and not really long grass.
Thursday was a great day since it was Ligo. We had some barley mushroom soup and met with Laima! She is back after the disaster with her husband. It was neat because she said she could feel our prayers and that she felt like it was okay to answer the phone when we called. She has such the spirit, I came away edified. She took home the Restoration video and is going to watch it with her husband. We are praying for his heart to soften. We had a small Ligo party at the church. We learned how to make the wreaths (or head gear---I don't know what to call them in English). We also ate, played games, and drank kvass (yuck!- look it up on Wikipedia). It was too windy for us to have a bonfire, but normally you jump over one so that the sun will behave normally.
On Saturday I found something really neat in my scripture study. Mosiah 27! Those hooligan sons of Mosiah who went about destroyed the church followed all six steps of the repentance process found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet. I was excited about this and so we taught Olga about repentance. She doesn't think she'll be in the country for her baptismal date... After our English class we cleaned the church as usual. Sintia cleaned the windows with anti-freeze. Let's just say that the elders cleaned them again. We also met with an awesome church member, Skaidre. She was one of the first in Liepaja and may quit one of her jobs (she has two) so that she can come to church more.
On Sunday we had a great show up to hear the Rubows talk (in charge of CES here). Laima, Liga (baptismal date), Rita (less active), Lidija (less active), the Tolmacovi family, etc. etc. We had to guard Sister Rubow's sloppy joes for the seminary graduation. Literally guard. We had rolling pins. It was awesome food though and then of course there was more missionary work. We went on splits again! Sister Ferrin went with Madara who is here for the week and I took Sintija (aka Cynthia) and Inguss with me. They were fun to go out with; Sintija is very giggly. We did have a great lesson on a park bench with a nice old lady who was willing to talk to us for five minutes! Miracles abound!
Also on Sunday Ieva and Olga dropped themselves. They don't have the desire right now to do what it takes. Later they will get baptized. Sister Ferrin found out she'll be leaving December 16th, so that is when I will begin training! She is a great missionary. President Dance told her in her interview that her mission scripture should be Alma 38:1-5. So I am with a Book of Mormon caliber missionary!
The work is going well, I love sharing the gospel with others. This is God's work and it is His glory.
Reflections on the past transfer...what I've learned.
Being a parent is hard. Infinite love, forgiveness.
Sharing and teamwork doesn't always mean 50/50
Never give up on people
You have to fight harder than Satan
"Do what you want and say what you feel because those that mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
COMMUNICATION
-it is important to say thank you
-preface your thoughts
-the importance of words
-always think before you speak
-be clear about what you are trying to communication
Monday, June 20, 2011
Week 18
20 June 2011
Hello from Down Under!
Okay, so I suppose I'm really not from 'Down Under' but it sounded like a good thing to say. This week was quite the eventful one, as usual.
On Monday we had an appointment scheduled with a lady that I had called earlier last week. It was like a wild goose chase finding her, she kept on changing where she wanted to meet. We eventually did meet her after running around for nearly 30 minutes and she didn't want to talk about God at all. She did invite us over for pancakes sometime though. Madara came down from her hometown of Saldus and we had lunch together. We split a pizza...a pickle pizza! They grated a giant pickle on to it, and yes, it was sort of good in a really odd way.
The highlight of Monday was definitely our bike gang. The youth have been down lately and so we organized a huge bike ride. We rented bikes and helped rent bikes for those that didn't have bikes. We had a great turnout! Rita's brother came for a little while and he had a tandem bicycle that he let us ride. Talk about companionship unity! Sister Ferrin cannot be trusted in the front...she almost ran us into several things. Next time I'll steer. So we were pretty much this giant bike gang with 10-12 people riding along (Elder Holdaway, Elder Lynch, Sister Ferrin, Sister Lindstrom, Sandijs, Inguss, Rita, Cintija, Madara, and Rihards). We went over the bridge and up through one of the parks and back down through center and then we followed the bike path. The bike path took us past the sea and through some pine trees and all the way to the end of town. We stopped at the giant Liepaja sign and took lots of pictures. We headed back up and Madara got a flat tire! It really wasn't her day (she also broke the light reflector off her rental bike and ran into a pole. She also almost got hit by a bus.) but she was a good sport and after going to a gas station, calling a ward member, we finally found a tire shop that filled it up for free. Cinitia joined our bike gang and took us to the lake. It was quite the ride! It was so nice to be bicycle riding.
Tuesday morning we had a good meeting with President S. and Olga. President S. offered her a priesthood blessing which she is going to think about getting. The best part of the day was most definitely Santa's meeting. We took Rihards with because we were planning on talking about the temple. We did not talk about the temple. We got there and we had Santa tell her conversion story so we could write it (it is something President Dance has asked us to do). This took about 40 minutes during which Rihards kept on trying to get Riksi, the dog, to be by him and not by us masas. Then the cat came. I sat and laughed the rest of the time at the phobia Rihards has for crocodiles, the cat. The cat's real name is Mixie, but she has a tendancy to attack people so Santa calls her crocodiles. She told Rihards the story of the other Santa getting attacked and so he was just paranoid, "I think the cat is out to get me." It was. Mixie is a smart cat, she can open doors. She kept on trying to open the door to get back in so Rihards just reached over and held it shut. Santa thought that women not having the priesthood was discrimination so we had to go over that and then the cat came in for the prayer. It was the longest prayer ever. Santa kept on stopping and watching the cat (or so I heard, I was closing my eyes the whole time). But the cat jumped up on the furniture by Rihards head and he was all nervous and then the cat came between Sister Ferrin and I. Santa had paused praying again and then out squeeks Sister Ferrin, "I'm scared." Then some frog croaked outside and I lost it and started laughing.
After our animal adventure we all headed back to the church to teach Oskars. We got there a little early and we couldn't start the meeting without Madara so Ieva told us that we were playing ping pong with her. It was pretty hilarious since she is still working on the whole hand-eye coordination thing. Rihards was so great, "My dearest Ieva, you've got to hit the ping pong ball with love." WHAP! "It is kind of like dancing." Oh geez!
Wednesday was a very long day. It started at about 2am. Masa Ferina was sick and her moaning and a groaning woke me up. She apparently had a wicked bad headache so I got up and we got her drugs and tea and a massage. We had the priviledge of waking up even earlier than normal to go to Zone Conference up in Riga. The bus ride up was quite uneventful, everyone else slept. The conference was amazing. We all had the opportunity to bear our testimonies. The Spirit was so strong and it was neat to hear from everyone. President Dance then told us the story of receiving the call to be a mission president and what would happen with President Boswell coming in July 1st. He also told us about how missions are ranked and how ours is a three (based on language, climate, distance from home, culture, number of baptisms, health care, etc.). He said this is one of the reasons that Elder Clayton was so astonished that we only had 5 missionaries who didn't grow up in the gospel and were converts. That apparently never happens so it sort of gives you an insight to how hard our mission is. He then proceeded to tell us about the seven things that he learned on his mission.
1. Weightloss! We all carry with us baggage. Forward and outward are the important directions in our life.
2. You seek what you find. Whatever you seek (happiness, goodness, badness) you find.
3. There are no boundaries on our capacity to grow and change. People can always change into something very different, don't ever judge them.
4. When we choose our path (our choice) we choose our destination (the consequence).
5. Obedience is the path that we have to travel. Obedience is a creative act, a creative experience. Obedience creates faith.
6. The hand of the Lord reaches further than we can ever visualize. We don't see the preparation that happened beforehand.
7. The best things happen on the way. Enjoy the journey, we are in the process of becoming.
These are some great things and I definitely agree with all of President Dance's insights. He will definitely be missed.
We had kebabs for lunch as well as interviews with President Dance for about five minutes. He told me something pretty neat about him sending sisters to Liepaja. He said that he has been worried about it because they really need priesthood holders down there but when he thought of the two sisters he was going to send down there he wasn't worried about it because he said he knows we know what we are doing and that we are confident enough to teach men and families. It was a really nice compliment from my mission president.
I ate lunch with Sister Hardy and Elder Lynch along with some other missionaries. Sister Hardy told us to never give up on people and then told us this amazing story about her brother who has lived in his car for many years and never went to college or anything and how, through a series of events, he ended up being found (he was lost to his family for a while) and then got baptized, married, and will be getting sealed soon! It was such a neat and inspiring story about how God really does prepare people. I feel so priveledged to help be a part of that here in Latvia.
On Thursday President S. went with us to visit Ruta, the new Relief Society president. She fed us all a yummy lunch of chicken and rice, tea, and strawberries and cream. We then headed off to Mara (aka Mara and the Janes). It was quite a miracle that we got an appointment with her. We were planning on dropping her since we'd been trying for a month to get a hold of her but I just decided to call her to invite her to the ward party on Friday. She answered the phone (miracle!) and then said, "Finally!! When can we meet?" So we went over there and went back and forth about what to teach her because we weren't really feeling like teaching what we had planned. We decided on the gospel of Jesus Christ and had a great lesson in which we invited her to be baptized and she accepted, at least sort of. She said she supposed that she could get baptized again if she needed to and that she wanted to see a baptism first. It was quite an exciting meeting!
We then caught a bus and went to President S.'s. He invited us over to Sarra's birthday party. She was turning three and they had invited a less active that they wanted us to fellowship. This would have worked out perfectly if everyone there didn't speak Russian except for us! It made it difficult, but I enjoyed listening to everyone jibber jabber away in Russian. President made the pizza and the giant torte that Sarra wanted. It indeed was a giant lemon torte. She was so excited to see it. The little girls loved the noise makers we brought and thought they were the funniest things ever.
Friday is was raining so naturally we got lost. We were trying to find Ausma, an active member. She reminds me of Claire in the fact that she has this old growly sounding voice. She is a hoot. She showed us all of her pictures, including ones of missionaries she knows and of Rihards from the ward. We at first thought that he was her grandson and then we figured out that he was just a nice boy and they are friends. She was so proud of him, "Rihards wrote me while he was on his mission in Utah." "You mean California?" "Yeah, in Utah." She is such a solid member, she has been a member for a long time and is one of the few who has church pictures up. I felt so bad for her though, she lives in a retirement home in a tiny room with like one or two bathrooms for the whole entire hall. It was probably about the size of my dorm in France. Bless her heart. She has a little dog that she likes to bribe with hot dogs to make dance. On the way back I got splashed by a truck! There was a giant puddle and it got me. I naturally screamed and started laughing as the three-year-old in me always does.
We had the special opportunity of going to Madara's High School Graduation. We also had Rihards, Inguss, Sandijs, Cintija, Rita, and President S. and his family there. It was pretty great seeing Rihards, Inguss, and Sandijs in their suits with flowers. They looked like they were competing for a girl they wanted to date or something. Flowers are a very important part of graduations here. I shall attempt to explain what happened. Madara goes to a music school in this awesome old building. We were in a gorgeous concert hall with chandeliers and seating like in theatres. They called the names one at a time and they came walking in their prom-esque outfits (but short dresses) while a little blurb was said about each graduate and pictures of them were shown. There weren't even twenty graduates (and only one boy!) so it wasn't long. There was then a back and forth exchange of speeches, advice, and singing. They had three opera singing girls sing songs. Scholarships were awarded. Flowers were given to the teachers by the students. The national anthem was sung. The graduates gave flowers to their parents. At the end they called every graduates name again and everyone that was there to support them stood up and got in a line to congratulate them and give them flowers (an odd number mind you, even numbers of flowers are for dead people). It was a really cool graduation and it meant the world to Madara that we were there.
We then all went to the church for a ward party. It was interesting to say the least and very last minute. No one told us what is was, we just knew that we were taking an airplane trip to somewhere. Sista F. and I got to be stewardesses and pass out cookies. We were thinking that it was going to be a Plan of Salvation activity (that the plane would crash and we'd die and then we'd go to the kingdoms and such). I especially thought this when I saw someone with angel wings. And a golden curly wig. With a halo. Sadly, it was not a plan of salvation activity. The man with the angel wings was the lei dude from church last Sunday. My favorite part of the activity was watching Elder Holdaway sit by him and keep a straight face as he raised his white-gloved hand and asked, "Our we going to crash? I'm terrified of crashing. Where is this plane going again?" Oh goodness. I. Love. People. Uldiss Frolavs (Cintija's dad) ended up showing pictures from his mysterious trip to Indonesia that he wouldn't tell anyone about. Let's just say we were glad we didn't have any of our investigators show up.
Saturday was a busy day. We had English class (without Baiba, our translator) but Santa came and she helped us pull Mihelijs after the lesson to talk about the Book of Mormon. He is Russian Orthodox but we want him to convert. :) We then cleaned the church with some of the members and some of our investigators and then headed off to pick up the Jacques at the bus station. We took them to their hotel and then to the Pastnieka maja (the postman's house) for dinner. It was very delicious. "Grandpa" Jacques was a sweetheart and paid for us and we all enjoyed trying each other's dishes. The Jacques said it was the best food they have had in Latvia, so I suppose we chose well! (And the best soup that Elder Jacques has had ever). I got won tons filled with shredded veggies, Sister Ferrin some fish, and Elder Jacques got some amazing chicken as well. It was good. We then walked them to the beach and dropped them off there and went back to work since our lunch time was over.
Sunday was a great meeting. Elder and Sister Jacques spoke in sacrament. Sister J. spoke about prayer and Elder J. spoke about things that we need to always be doing. The last one was sing really loud and so we all sang I am a child of God. Ieva (the one who is 5) was belting it out and made us all smile. Liga loves church! She enjoyed sacrament and then was basically stealing my scriptures from me in Sunday School so that she could read what we were reading next. She also took one of all the pamphlets that we had sitting out and now how a copy of the temple issue of the Ensign. We'll just say that she is pretty intersted in the church right about now. :D We got the trolls (Ieva and Olga) to stay for all three hours! We went with them to young womens and had a good lesson about well, us! It was on missionary work and it was a great lesson that the girls were glad that they stayed for.
We came home from church and I made some veggie lasagna. Lasagna is hard to make! I'm definitely going to need to practice that one; it turned out delicious though. We had a meeting with the elders about how to better help the branch and then we met with both Olga and Ieva and told them we knew that they still weren't obeying the Word of Wisdom and that we loved them. We then sent them home with homework to think about how we can help them and that was that!
Another week has flown by as has another transfer. I hit my six month mark this week as Elder Lynch reminded me and transfers are this week. We have almost hit the peak of summer- the sun was up today at 4:29 am and won't be going down until 10:22 pm. There are lots of Linden trees in Liepaja...I actually think it may be the city tree because they are everywhere!
Lots of Love,
Sister Lindstrom
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
