June 7, 2011

I'm glad to hear your Memorial Day celebration was lovely! This week has been full of amazing and unexpected things! For example, on Monday night, we called the Russian sisters and they said that since Sis. G was leaving for the MTC in England, she had to go down to Vilnius, Lithuania before then for an appointment with her orthodontist...AND I GOT TO ACCOMPANY HER. WOOHOOOOOO~!!! I never thought I'd ever make it down there, but I guess the Assistants saidthat they thought they'd keep Sis. Uibel and Sis. Lamar up here in Tallinn so they could take care of things in both Russian and Estonian for the days we would be gone. So, Wednesday afternoon, Sis. Grineviciute and I rode down to Riga, spent the night with the Russian sisters there, then went to the bus station early in the morning for our 7am bus to Vilnius. When we arrived, we went straight to her appointment. I sat there waiting for about half an hour and then Sis.G came out and I asked "...That's it? You're done??" We traveled 2 days and 8+ hours on a bus for a half hour appointment, ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, well, I won't complain, because we had a fun time. She got permission from Pres. Dance to visit her family and home to pack more things for the MTC. I slept on her bed for a little as she gathered things. We were actually a little afraid we wouldn't get in because only her grandma was home, and she has hearing problems (and we didn't have a phone), but thankfully she heard enough of our banging on the door to let us in :) Her parents came home and Sis. G's mom prepared us some food as we went to go get some last minute shopping done. When we returned we ate something like breaded chicken with cheese and some rice that her mother cooked for us.

By 6:30, we were back on a bus to Riga, and got there just before 10:30. We started to worry because we didn't see the Dances show up for a while, but finally Sis. Dance came racing into the bus station. Strangely, she was by herself, but she explained that she was busy vacuuming the car out because the General Authorities would be there for the weekend and then she got carried away and lost track of time and then remembered about us sisters waiting at the station! Half way to the bus station, Pres. Dance called her to ask where she went because he thought that they'd go together, but she just left him in the dust, HA HA HA HA!!! That was funny :) Sis. G was set apart that night and then we slept (better yet, napped) at the mission home from midnight until 4 when we had to wake up to get ready to take her to the airport. The Jacques came to pick us up and as we were at the airport, checking in Sis. G's bag, they told us something was wrong with her ticket. Somehow it was reserved, but never paid for...? Anyway, we had to buy her a new one so she could get to England. Once she was on her merry way, I ate breakfast at the Jacques' apartment until it was my turn to go to the bus station for my 8am bus back to Tallinn. Funny thing was, I rode back with Elder Pack (Russian) since he got stuck in Riga after a meeting because he forgot his passport and they wouldn't let him on the bus. So, his companion had to cargo bus it to him and he spent a few extra days in Riga, lol. Rather than sleeping, we ended up talking the entire time back up to Tallinn. It's about a 4 1/2 hour bus ride :P Elder Pack is a chatty one, ha ha.

I kinda wish I just stayed in Riga for the weekend because then we went on back for Mission Conference yesterday. Our bus left at 5:30, and after the conference and lunch, we came back and arrived in Tallinn after 8. I've been pretty exhausted the last week, but it's been fun. Rackin' up the frequent rider miles much? :D Mission conference was absolutely splendid, albeit unpleasantly warm. It shows in all the pictures I took from yesterday, he he. Elders Clayton and Lawrence from the Seventy came, accompanied by their wives. We all had an opportunity to shake their hands and greet them. I realized that we'll have a new mission president by next month. Woooooooow. That'll be an interesting change. The Dances have been fabulous in their service here. Pres. Dance is certainly a very inspired and humble leader.

Our trio with Sis. Uibel has already been a blast. We actually have a lot of appointments set up for this week, and most promising is that actually a member set one up for us with her cousin who came to church on Sunday! We'll be meeting with them tomorrow night. Last week, we also received a referral from another member, and a young teen member randomly called us up on Saturday to possibly teach her friend before she left for England for a month, but that didn't work out. Still ok though. That's quite amazing. Member missionary work is definitely the way to go!

I haven't gotten the package yet because the zone leaders have those keys and they're lazy and only check once, maybe twice a week if we're lucky. xP Normally they'd have mail for us at district meeting, but since we're having preparation day today, we probably won't have it this week. I'll have to call them about that...

Things are looking on the bright side now that it's summer! Let's hope and pray it stays like this for a while :) Thanks for all the love and prayers! I love you all so dearly.

Kisses,
Courtney