Resolutions and Gratitude

One of my New Year's resolutions is to update this blog on a weekly to bi-weekly basis. Trying to catch up on 2 month's worth of news is just TOO FRUSTRATING!

That having been said, I simply can't express by gratitude to God adequately enough for the opportunity to serve here. To work with these wonderful young people, spreading the good news, joyful message of the Gospel, is fulfilling and enriching beyond measure. I highly recommend it!

Happy New Year!

On New Year's Eve and New Year's Day our mission- aries stay in. It's just too crazy out in the streets, and people aren't in a condition to talk about spiritual things anyway. This year we had all the Sister missionaries in Latvia come stay at the mission home. They don't get to see each other often, and this is a great time to relax a little and bond. Some of the member young women joined us for the sleep-over; we ended up with 17 staying with us - good fun. We watched Disney and Church videos, ate, wrote in journals, ate, talked, played games, ate, read, napped - it was a low-key day to simply recharge our batteries.
Some of the Elders stayed next door in the Assistants to the President's apartment, so we had them over for lunch and dinner. Russ was afraid that they were starving over there. . .

We've moved!

At last we've moved into the new mission home! I begged and pleaded with Raitis the contractor that we be in by Christmas. He promised that we would, and sure enough, on December 21 we began moving into our new home. It's on the 3rd floor of a newly renovated condo building overlooking one of the busiest streets in Riga. It's not as quiet as our last neighborhood, but we don't have to contend with threatening landlords anymore - the Church bought this place. We have all new furniture - the old had seen better days - beautiful window treatments, and a modern kitchen with a wall oven and wood cabinetry. I love it! It was quite the job to get in, get settled, things put away, and decorated for Christmas, all by Christmas Eve for the Christmas party, but we got it done. It's nice to have the space to host large groups again. Should anyone care to write us a letter, the address is Brivibas iela 139 - 7, Riga LV-1012, Latvia

Christmas Eve at the Mission Home

On Christmas Eve we had all the missionaries serving in Riga come over for dinner and a party. I made BBQ pork sandwiches and the missionaries brought everything else. We have some great cooks in the mission, so we ate well. After dinner was a talent show. We had singing, piano playing, readings - Russ gave "The Night Before Christmas - from memory! The show was followed by a white elephant gift exchange - great fun. We ended with the reading of Luke 2, a tradition that has existed in our family since we were a family.

Christmas Zone Conference

At Christmas we have a special round of Zone Confer- ences, one in each of our 3 countries. We have the usual talks and work- shops, but we also do some things unique to the holiday. I make a power point show with pictures that the missionaries have sent me. I ask them for 2 pictures each: one showing activities typical of missionary life, and one showing the real reasons we’re here. The pictures they send me range from the very moving to the absolutely hilarious. We take group pictures, which they can forward to their families. We also do a Christmas Reader’s Theater program, based on scriptures that foretell His coming as well as Luke 2, all interspersed with Christmas music performed by each district. After that we go out to dinner. It helps bond the missionaries together, as well as increase knowledge of and love for the Savior, and reminds them of the importance of their work here.

Christmas party

We had a Senior Couple Christmas party on December 5. Everyone came to dinner at the mission home, and then it was on to the ballet at the National Theater to see The Nutcracker. The Theater is spectacularly oppulent - gold leafing everywhere. It performance was excellent; even the few among us who had a problem with men in white tights had to admit that the ballet was beautifully done. After the ballet, we went to the Hunter's home and had dessert and a goofy gift exchange. It was great to get together, relax, and enjoy the spirit of the season. Missions do have their lighter moments!

True Love

The older widows in the Baltics unfailingly adopt the missionaries as their own and become quite protective and possessive of them. They overfeed them, over doctor them, and give them advice on just about everything. Nedezda (in Tartu) is the self-appointed guardian and protector of the Elders there, and it nearly breaks her heart when transfers come or missionaries go home. We get heart-rending emails and phone calls from her, pleading that we don't send "her boys" away to some other city. She loves them, pure and simple. One of our Elders was ill in December, and Nedezda sent me an email about his condition, using words like angina, pneumonia, death. I immediately called him to find out what was going on. He had a good laugh and then explained that he had a sore throat and was staying in for the day. He is in a threesome, so his companions had to stay home with him. Somehow Nedezda found out and felt the need to alert me to catastrophies ahead. She was sure he was on death's door and wanted him taken to the doctor right now! She also wanted one of the young sister missionaries to sit home with him so his companions could be out working. She just wouldn't understand why we wouldn't do this! Bless her heart, mother-of-the-world . . .

Budding Artist

Julija Ujuk bore her testimony and spoke about how she and her husband had taught their children in Family Home Evening about listening to the talks in Church. She had suggested to her 8 year old daughter Rebekah that she take notes of some kind so she could remember what the speakers said. Julija forgot about her suggestions until church started this morning and Rebekah took out a tablet of paper and markers, and got right to work. She listed who spoke and the main thoughts of their comments. She also drew portraits of the people on the stand, includeing Russ and I. After the meeting Rebekah gave me her portrait of us. It was a pretty good likeness of Russ and I, considering her age and the limited number of markers she had to work with.

Hotels

Most of the cities where we have congre- gations are large enough to have really nice hotels, a wonderful surprise considering that I came here expecting to suffer as we traveled. In the capital cities, we stay at the Reval Hotels - first class all the way. Some of the smaller cities have more quaint lodging, bordering on the quirky. In Tartu, we stay at the Pallas Hotel - pronounced Palace - whose name outreaches its reality a bit. Each of the rooms has a theme. Russ and I seem to constantly be assigned what I like to call The Big Cat room, so named for the mural on the wall opposite the beds. We discovered that it's their handicap room - I'm hoping that our constantly being given this room is a reflection of record keeping rather than our physical appearance. It's clean, but very bare bones - 2 slightly caved in single beds, and a thin carpet that valiantly attempts to hide the rises and dips in the cement floor beneath. It's a little unnerving to go to sleep under the watchful eye of the mural's 2 reclining felines. I always feel a little as if I'm being assessed as dinner. On one visit, they assigned us to a more sophisticated room. We unlocked the door and found ourself face to face with a mural depicting naked people cavorting about on the walls. We went back to the desk and asked the clerk if there were a different room available. She replied, with genuine surprise apparent in her voice, "You don't like dancers?" Bring on the tigers. . .