Oh goody!
I just wrote Shauna a decently long e-mail so that took up enough time for you to finish yours! My inbox said I received in 14 minutes ago :) The earliest I'll be checking e-mails is about 10am, so what, 1am you're time? I just realized that my camera doesn't have a usb port so I'll have to buy a card reader so I can attach some photos for you some time. I asked Sis. Aitken/Sis. Anderson to send the card to you... Sis. Aitken finally made it to Keila yesterday and I think Sis. Anderson should be leaving the MTC in a few hours so I really hope they dropped it in the box this weekend... If they didn't send it, I wonder how you could get it... Perhaps somehow get in contact with the Branch 41 Presidency? I'm not sure how you'd manage that, 'cause I think I threw away the paper with their phone numbers. Let's just hope it reaches you in a few days! Oh, and I did get Grandma Smith's letter :)
Goodness, I can't even imagine what 110 weather is like since it was cold and rainy when we arrived in Estonia on Thursday! Those first few days were quite cold! Today's not so bad, I just need a sweater. How I will survive once winter rolls around, I know not...HAHAHAHA! That'll be fun :P
I believe you spoke to Cinthia at work. I got to know her for a few months before I left. Cute little gal~ That's funny you had Mexican food last night because we made our own soft tacos for dinner! The only thing they have for salsa is this German-made stuff called Texacana that's not chunky like real salsa and it's a tad bit sweeter. Anyway, our tacos were pretty good. A Robot birthday sounds awesome, by the way. I happened to find a cute robot folder in the free bin at the MTC. It makes me happy :)
It was pretty fun traveling in a huge group of 19 throughout the airports. Sometimes we'd have to leave some people behind and hope they'd catch up as we weaved our way around. We all made it here safely though! I don't think anybody was really able to sleep on the Lufthansa flight over to Frankfurt. Everybody around us had their little entertainment screens going, almost the whole flight time so that created some added flashing lights. Right as everyone was starting to really settle down to sleep, it was about 5:30am or so in Germany and they started to serve us breakfast, lol. We all were tuckered out on the plane to Riga so we had a short nap :) Everyone at the mission home says that's was always seems to happen, ha ha. By the way, the mission home is a way sweet place!! They combined two aparments to make one big home. There are some doors so when guests stay, they can make it more private like if they were separate apartments. All of the Elder slept there during our stay while the 5 of us sisters got to stay in the Lenin hotel/museum. Hmm, fascinating name, eh?
I think the story is that Lenin stayed in that same building back in like 1900 so the bottom floor/lobby has a large bust of Lenin and some other little relics like old magazines on the table and some things in a glass case. I don't know why the missionaries call it a museum. There are no signs for it and the only time we saw other people were when we checked in. Other than that, we had the whole place to ourselves and a key to the front door. We stayed in two tiny rooms upstairs. Funny thing was we even had a bathroom, but no sink...? Just a toilet and a shower. So yeah. We had to spit in the shower. It was a really small room, but quiet. Latvians seem to like driving and making as much noise as they can with their cars and motorcycles. Silly kids.
Street contacting was a bit odd since I don't speak Russian or Latvian. I was stuck with 2 Russian-speaking sisters so they did most of the talking, but I tried contacting some younger women and asked if they spoke English. They didn't seem interested in religion, but they were willing to take our pass-along cards and we told them about English classes. President and Sister Dance and the Jacques and the Hardys are all super people. For the short time that I got to meet with them, I love them so much already.
On Wednesday, we split into groups and rotated doing office paperwork, creating lesson plans, contacting and study/nap time. I suppose our group seemed especially tired because the Dances pretty much told us to sleep, haha.
Thursday morning, we met at the Riga center chapel, ate some cereal and things and then waited for our trainers to get out of their meeting. Then we all gathered in a huge circle and President Dance gave a little intro of each of us before he announce where we'd be serving and with whom. And I ended up in.......*drum roll*............PÄRNU with Õde LeFevre!!! It's been a while since sisters have been here, and it obviously shows in our apartment. Actually, I guess we have one of the nicest apartments among the Estonian missionaries, but you can tell Elders have been there for a while. They said they tried to clean, but I don't understand what they meant by that... One of the Elders, Elder Aardema, was being transferred to Tallinn, but he stayed for a few days to help us get a little acquainted since only 1 missionary out of the 4 in Pärnu was staying. The best this about our apartment is that it has a great view of the sea! That's still odd for me to look out and see the Baltic Sea.
We were greeted at the Pärnu bus stop by the Elders and Janeli, a young 19 year old member who's really sweet, cute, and spunky, but she speaks SO FAAAASSSTTTT!! She's so willing to help us out and even did a little street contacting with us on Friday. I think she's wants to meet us all some time today and go to her house out in the country a little ways.
Yesterday's sacrament meeting was interesting. I tried to follow along, but I didn't even catch half of it. Oh well. All the members are very welcoming even though I can only understand a little of what they're saying. It's a really small branch with some 20 members or so, but they just baptized a family last month and they have a few really great priesthood holders now. No more need for the missionaries to be in the branch presidency, so that's a big step.
Everyday, I'm building up a little more courage to speak. It's kinda hard at the moment since Sis. LeFevre has only been here for 3 months and doesn't understand a whole lot more than I do! But, we're trying as best as we can. Yesterday, we tried our first day of knocking at the edge of town, but most people didn't answer their doors. I guess they were all away for the weekend? Anyway, we were able to get into 2 doors and talk to some older ladies. One was wondering what makes our church different so we told her about Joseph Smith but she wouldn't take a Book of Mormon since she has a vision problem. Perhaps we could return back and read some to her... Another lady took us on a tour of her garden before we entered her house and insisted that we take home some chives, tomatoes, a cucumber and some huge pink flowers. Inside we talked with her for a long while, and she had some very... interesting views about God and religion. Some of her thoughts on God's plan were spot on, but others were way off. Like she believes the spirit of her Father is now in her grandson who lives with her... yeah. Odd things like that. Anyway, she was nice to us and she actually took a Book of Mormon to read. I think we'll try to prepare more about the Plan of Salvation if she'll let us come back and teach next time.
We're just getting used to the town because we're both new, but the Elders before us left us a list of potential investigators and people to contact. We already have a handful of lessons set up for this week, yay! Well, I've spent a lot of time at the computer now. I gotta get going so I can do other things. Thanks for the prayers and love! I love you all so very much!!
Love,
Courtney
Minu aadress Pärnus (My address in Pärnu)
Hommiku 2
P-K 55
Pärnu 80010
Estonia
Addresses here are rather simple. I like it :)
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