Hi fam!
I hope you had a wonderful Easter! And Happy Birthday to Shauna too! Easter here was very beautiful. We made a huge dinner for 10 (missionaries and some members) and it was a lot of work!! Now I better appreciate all that you do Mom! We made a pork roast, corn, a bunny-shaped cake and the Elders brought mashed potatoes.
The weather is just perfect right now. We went with a potential investigator this morning to the forest 30km away and there were some bogs too. The ground was very soft and felt like we were walking on mattresses, ha ha! We climbed to the top of a watch tower and We walked across the highway towards the oceanside to get to her country home. She's preparing to sell it because it's just too much work to keep it up by herself now that she's old. It was so cute~ The house was built some 118 years ago, but she's only owned it for the last 17 years. She did a lot of renovating, but it still looks very reminiscent of the period. I felt like I was in some sort of house turned into a museum, except we could actually touch and explore things, ha ha. After that, we tried to check out the ocean nearby, we saw some swans (?) but there wasn't really a beach so as we wandered around in the brush, we were just tromping around in the marshes and therefore got our shoes, feet, and pants soaked, ha ha ha. Buuuuuut it was still fun :)
Apparently Estonians like to color their eggs with onion peels that they wrap around the egg and then boil it to give it a brownish-yellowish color. Another interesting activity they do is to go around tapping the boiled eggs together to see who's cracks first. It's kinda like rock-paper-scissor fights, but with eggs :) We had a good turn out of people at Game night and several investigators too! The children did a puppet show of the Good Samaritan which was really cute.
It turns out that we didn't have the exchange last week, but it will be Friday of this week. I'll be going up to Tallinn and Sis. LeDuc will be here with Sis. G. I think this is an indicator that I may be moving to Tallinn next transfer. There's a high possibility, but I suppose we should wait for the official word in two or so weeks. Our District Conference (like stake conference for all the members here) has been change from this weekend until the final weekend in May because Elder Schwitzer of the Seventy will be coming from Moscow. I'm kinda bummed because I was looking forward to see everyone, but we'll have to wait some more.
Now that Easter's over, that means that Mother's Day is coming soon and a phone call home too! Better get excited~ I've been reading several Ensign articles lately about Easter and from conferences past. Those have been very uplifting and inspiring be to continually improve.
I love you all sooooooo much!
Love,
Courtney
Monday, April 25, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
April 18, 2011 Happy Easter
Dear loved ones,
It's been a little bit of an up-and-down week 'round here. The weather is really pleasant now, "all you need's a light jacket!" Sort of like that, ha ha.
We tried to invite Lempi to be baptized when we were teaching her, but I don't think she really understood what we were getting at so she didn't quite give us a direct answer. At least we had a member there to help explain a little. Oh well, we'll have to try again this week. I'm not sure if sometimes Estonians really understand what 'authority' means. That's where we could use a little more member help to testify about that. Jüri doesn't seem ready to make the sacrifices to come to church, so he can't get baptized on April 30th like we'd planned. We told him we'd move it to May, but haven't set an exact date. We hope to teach him with some other members so they can share their experiences with the blessings of sacrifice. Ain is our other investigator with a baptismal date. He's kinda hit rock-bottom this week as some family problems have really been stressing him out and causing him to turn to drinking as a solution. Thankfully the Elders were able to come with us on Thursday to go visit him and do a little intervention. That made me feel a little safer. Ain is a nice man, but he's kinda huggy and even more so when he's emotional. Yesterday, we asked the branch president and his councilor to try giving him a call to check up on him and provide support. Ain did say that he wants to get baptized with his son on the same day. His daughter, age 17-18? was baptized a year and a half ago, but she's been inactive since I've been here. I didn't even know he had a son who's somewhere in his 20s. Ain gave the Elder his son's number. Who knows if he's really interested, but if so, we have a lot of work to do!
Since the first weekend of this month was conference, and because we didn't have time for testimonies last week, our branch president wanted to have testimony meeting yesterday. It was really great! I hope that this means the branch is on a rebound because things just seemed a little off during winter. Actually, on the way to church, I sat a across from a lady who was fumbling with some bags on her lap so I ask if it'd help if I hold on to it, to which she declined. Then she said "You must be a Mormon." I said that that's usually what people call us, but it's a different name. Then she said that she could tell I was a member because we're always so willing to help. I asked "so, you've talked to missionaries before?" "I'm a member" *gulp* "Ohhhh, ok!" She's been inactive for several years because she has bad health and somebody (I bet it was a missionary) told her that she doesn't love God since she won't come, or call a taxi to get to church or something like that. Ouch. Yeah. She's still bitter about that and so I said that I'd like to talk more with her later, but she said we'll see in the future. Oddly enough, I talked to the Elders about her and Elder Baird said he called her the night before, so obviously God wants us to get in contact with her :)
We maaaaaay be having exchanges this week...? I'm not sure. Sis.Wrigley was supposed to come down last week while her companions went to Lithuania for Sis. G's braces, but she was too sick so she stayed with the senior couple in Tallinn. So, perhaps we'll try again this week! Elder Elmer said he has some news for us, but won't say anything until tomorrow's district meeting :P BUT, I did get an e-mail from President Dance that includes the exchange report, so I think it's a go, for sure! (and if it's not, ha ha, oh well) Gotta run now!
Have a lovely Easter!
Love,
Courtney
It's been a little bit of an up-and-down week 'round here. The weather is really pleasant now, "all you need's a light jacket!" Sort of like that, ha ha.
We tried to invite Lempi to be baptized when we were teaching her, but I don't think she really understood what we were getting at so she didn't quite give us a direct answer. At least we had a member there to help explain a little. Oh well, we'll have to try again this week. I'm not sure if sometimes Estonians really understand what 'authority' means. That's where we could use a little more member help to testify about that. Jüri doesn't seem ready to make the sacrifices to come to church, so he can't get baptized on April 30th like we'd planned. We told him we'd move it to May, but haven't set an exact date. We hope to teach him with some other members so they can share their experiences with the blessings of sacrifice. Ain is our other investigator with a baptismal date. He's kinda hit rock-bottom this week as some family problems have really been stressing him out and causing him to turn to drinking as a solution. Thankfully the Elders were able to come with us on Thursday to go visit him and do a little intervention. That made me feel a little safer. Ain is a nice man, but he's kinda huggy and even more so when he's emotional. Yesterday, we asked the branch president and his councilor to try giving him a call to check up on him and provide support. Ain did say that he wants to get baptized with his son on the same day. His daughter, age 17-18? was baptized a year and a half ago, but she's been inactive since I've been here. I didn't even know he had a son who's somewhere in his 20s. Ain gave the Elder his son's number. Who knows if he's really interested, but if so, we have a lot of work to do!
Since the first weekend of this month was conference, and because we didn't have time for testimonies last week, our branch president wanted to have testimony meeting yesterday. It was really great! I hope that this means the branch is on a rebound because things just seemed a little off during winter. Actually, on the way to church, I sat a across from a lady who was fumbling with some bags on her lap so I ask if it'd help if I hold on to it, to which she declined. Then she said "You must be a Mormon." I said that that's usually what people call us, but it's a different name. Then she said that she could tell I was a member because we're always so willing to help. I asked "so, you've talked to missionaries before?" "I'm a member" *gulp* "Ohhhh, ok!" She's been inactive for several years because she has bad health and somebody (I bet it was a missionary) told her that she doesn't love God since she won't come, or call a taxi to get to church or something like that. Ouch. Yeah. She's still bitter about that and so I said that I'd like to talk more with her later, but she said we'll see in the future. Oddly enough, I talked to the Elders about her and Elder Baird said he called her the night before, so obviously God wants us to get in contact with her :)
We maaaaaay be having exchanges this week...? I'm not sure. Sis.Wrigley was supposed to come down last week while her companions went to Lithuania for Sis. G's braces, but she was too sick so she stayed with the senior couple in Tallinn. So, perhaps we'll try again this week! Elder Elmer said he has some news for us, but won't say anything until tomorrow's district meeting :P BUT, I did get an e-mail from President Dance that includes the exchange report, so I think it's a go, for sure! (and if it's not, ha ha, oh well) Gotta run now!
Have a lovely Easter!
Love,
Courtney
Monday, April 11, 2011
April 11, 2011
Hello!
Yesterday was quite lovely. Ain came to church, and Lempi left her Lutheran church a little early to come make it to sacrament meeting :) Unfortunately, they didn't stay for the last session of conference, but one of the Elders' investigators did! (she was found through the open house 6 months ago. She starting to attend again now that work isn't so crazy :) Ain told us he wanted to give a bunch of brochures to a friend of his, so that's cool! President Dance paid a surprise visit to our sacrament meeting (we only found out on Friday), and he spoke and so did a young man, so we actually didn't have testimony meeting, hehe. The young man actually was serving a mission in Hungary and he was actually in the same MTC group as Leslie Jordan. I don't know really the details for him coming home a few weeks ago, but I know Pres. Dance assigned him to speak yesterday, so it was good to see he's doing all right. After church we think we might try renting bikes sometime when it warms up a little more. We had Zone Conference on Friday and I was surprised to see it looked like it had recently snowed as we rode into town. However, it looked like lots of snow had melted in Pärnu once we were back in our apartment. Zone Conference was excellent!! Elder Neuenschwander, an Emeritus member of the Seventy, and his wife, are now family history-ish missionaries in Moscow. They've been assigned to speak to the members here in the Baltics about keeping records and the importance of them, but they also joined our conference. After the conference, we rode into the old town part of Tallinn and enjoyed some pancakes at Kompressor. It was really good, and nice on the wallet too! I finally had a sneek peek of Old Town, but I wish I could have explored more. Oh well. That day'll come sometime :D
I still have to finish watching the last session of conference in English, but I've been really enjoying it so far. Hearing the prophet speak about temples has made me even more anxious to go. I hear the youth are having a conference in Helsinki, Finland so they can do a temple trip in July. I wish I could go!!!! I believe it was Elder Robbins (?) who talked about marking off children as 'Done' like some checklist. We all had a good chuckle at that! So, what would you say about that, family? I'm not quite there yet, huh? :P Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
We'll probably have to push back Jüri's baptismal date...*sigh* We had the branch president teach him with us once this week, but since Bro. Raid already has something against him, they were just kinda bickering, so it wasn't very effective to teach with a spirit of contention there :/ He's just lacking faith and trust that God will bless him if he just tries to live the commandments. We'll have to work on the basics, because he's going to need some more time to bring for the fruits meet for repentance and baptism. The good news for the mission is that we have 40 baptismal dates though!
You're right, that Boston trip was a long time ago! I could totally imagine Dad have a good laugh at Stacey's blunt response :P HAHAHAHAHA. I would've roared with laughter as too! I've seen a couple of beagles around town lately and so it's made me really miss our little silly Tilly~ Thanks for all the love, hugs, kisses, and support!
Much love,
Courtney
P.S. The contacts are great. Oh, and last week, Bro. Tšekmarjov made us amazing banana milkshakes. Oh boy, they were SOOOOO DELICIOUS. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, eh? :)
Yesterday was quite lovely. Ain came to church, and Lempi left her Lutheran church a little early to come make it to sacrament meeting :) Unfortunately, they didn't stay for the last session of conference, but one of the Elders' investigators did! (she was found through the open house 6 months ago. She starting to attend again now that work isn't so crazy :) Ain told us he wanted to give a bunch of brochures to a friend of his, so that's cool! President Dance paid a surprise visit to our sacrament meeting (we only found out on Friday), and he spoke and so did a young man, so we actually didn't have testimony meeting, hehe. The young man actually was serving a mission in Hungary and he was actually in the same MTC group as Leslie Jordan. I don't know really the details for him coming home a few weeks ago, but I know Pres. Dance assigned him to speak yesterday, so it was good to see he's doing all right. After church we think we might try renting bikes sometime when it warms up a little more. We had Zone Conference on Friday and I was surprised to see it looked like it had recently snowed as we rode into town. However, it looked like lots of snow had melted in Pärnu once we were back in our apartment. Zone Conference was excellent!! Elder Neuenschwander, an Emeritus member of the Seventy, and his wife, are now family history-ish missionaries in Moscow. They've been assigned to speak to the members here in the Baltics about keeping records and the importance of them, but they also joined our conference. After the conference, we rode into the old town part of Tallinn and enjoyed some pancakes at Kompressor. It was really good, and nice on the wallet too! I finally had a sneek peek of Old Town, but I wish I could have explored more. Oh well. That day'll come sometime :D
I still have to finish watching the last session of conference in English, but I've been really enjoying it so far. Hearing the prophet speak about temples has made me even more anxious to go. I hear the youth are having a conference in Helsinki, Finland so they can do a temple trip in July. I wish I could go!!!! I believe it was Elder Robbins (?) who talked about marking off children as 'Done' like some checklist. We all had a good chuckle at that! So, what would you say about that, family? I'm not quite there yet, huh? :P Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
We'll probably have to push back Jüri's baptismal date...*sigh* We had the branch president teach him with us once this week, but since Bro. Raid already has something against him, they were just kinda bickering, so it wasn't very effective to teach with a spirit of contention there :/ He's just lacking faith and trust that God will bless him if he just tries to live the commandments. We'll have to work on the basics, because he's going to need some more time to bring for the fruits meet for repentance and baptism. The good news for the mission is that we have 40 baptismal dates though!
You're right, that Boston trip was a long time ago! I could totally imagine Dad have a good laugh at Stacey's blunt response :P HAHAHAHAHA. I would've roared with laughter as too! I've seen a couple of beagles around town lately and so it's made me really miss our little silly Tilly~ Thanks for all the love, hugs, kisses, and support!
Much love,
Courtney
P.S. The contacts are great. Oh, and last week, Bro. Tšekmarjov made us amazing banana milkshakes. Oh boy, they were SOOOOO DELICIOUS. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, eh? :)
Monday, April 4, 2011
April 4, 2011 Generel Conference
You're already in the high 90s??!? Wow. Today (finally) is absolutely gorgeous~ I think I might ditch the boots and leggings soon. Wearing pants under skirts for the last, well, 5 months or so
might take some adjusting to go without, he he! It's also strange to see how the sidewalks seem to grow nowadays. Were they really that big before the snow? I dunno. I'm glad to hear all is going well back home!
I got the package last week, woo hoo! The Starburst jelly beans didn't last long though, ha ha ha. They were just sooooo goooood. Like a burst of flavor in your mouth (hence the name? lol) Now that's American candy for ya ;D
We have Zone conference in Tallinn on Friday and I think some Emeritus member of the Seventy is doing a broadcast on Sunday. General Conference was great! We'll watch the rest of it in English this week or in the following weeks. We actually had 3 investigators come to at least one of the sessions! 2 of them are men that have baptismal dates, one for the 30th this month, but we still have a lot to teach them. The hard thing with Jüri is that we're experiencing some
resistance from some of the branch members who don't feel comfortable about him. We need a fellow lady member to teach him with us, but some declined or couldn't make it so we had to have the Elders help us teach. I think there are rumors going around about Jüri, which may or
may not be true, but I think he's trying to change. We'll be able to tell by how well he keeps his commitments when we teach him next time.
Now for some good news! Turns out Sis. Aitken was misdiagnosed and she actually just has Mononucleosis, hence the extreme fatigue. So, I guess once she can keep up a missionary's schedule for a full week, then she'll be ok to come back. I would think she'd come back here
since she's already learned some Estonian. Elder Aardema went back to Tartu, so now Elder Elmer is here and this is Elder Baird's last transfer. For today's p-day, we'll be playing tennis with the Elders and one of their English students, so we're excited for that :) Gah, I can't think of what else to write about!! Sorry fam! I get pressured and then my mind goes blank >.< But I hope you know I love you so much. You're such a great strength and support to me!
This joke's for you Ryan: What is a Russian's favorite movie? Horror Show!
Much love,
Courtney
P.S. Just so you know, my release date is December 9th. I've known for about a month now but I forgot to tell you :P
might take some adjusting to go without, he he! It's also strange to see how the sidewalks seem to grow nowadays. Were they really that big before the snow? I dunno. I'm glad to hear all is going well back home!
I got the package last week, woo hoo! The Starburst jelly beans didn't last long though, ha ha ha. They were just sooooo goooood. Like a burst of flavor in your mouth (hence the name? lol) Now that's American candy for ya ;D
We have Zone conference in Tallinn on Friday and I think some Emeritus member of the Seventy is doing a broadcast on Sunday. General Conference was great! We'll watch the rest of it in English this week or in the following weeks. We actually had 3 investigators come to at least one of the sessions! 2 of them are men that have baptismal dates, one for the 30th this month, but we still have a lot to teach them. The hard thing with Jüri is that we're experiencing some
resistance from some of the branch members who don't feel comfortable about him. We need a fellow lady member to teach him with us, but some declined or couldn't make it so we had to have the Elders help us teach. I think there are rumors going around about Jüri, which may or
may not be true, but I think he's trying to change. We'll be able to tell by how well he keeps his commitments when we teach him next time.
Now for some good news! Turns out Sis. Aitken was misdiagnosed and she actually just has Mononucleosis, hence the extreme fatigue. So, I guess once she can keep up a missionary's schedule for a full week, then she'll be ok to come back. I would think she'd come back here
since she's already learned some Estonian. Elder Aardema went back to Tartu, so now Elder Elmer is here and this is Elder Baird's last transfer. For today's p-day, we'll be playing tennis with the Elders and one of their English students, so we're excited for that :) Gah, I can't think of what else to write about!! Sorry fam! I get pressured and then my mind goes blank >.< But I hope you know I love you so much. You're such a great strength and support to me!
This joke's for you Ryan: What is a Russian's favorite movie? Horror Show!
Much love,
Courtney
P.S. Just so you know, my release date is December 9th. I've known for about a month now but I forgot to tell you :P
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