August 29, 2011

With this new focus on working with less-active and active members, that's what we spent most of our time with this past week. A lot of it was wandering around finding addresses and trying to stop by at apartments because the phone numbers are bad. There are several people in our area that have seemed to vanish because we have no good, current contact information for them :/ I don't know if some of the members would still keep in contact with them. We got jaked by a less-active and we'd planned for the branch president to come with, so since that fell through, he invited us to his place for a soup dinner with his family! That was so nice :) We had several other appointments that were no-shows, so that's always disappointing, but meh, that's missionary work.

It's so strange to think Sis. LeDuc is home now! At least she's going right back to school, so that'll keep her busy. Chances are that I'll be in Tallinn for at least one more transfer, probably with Sis. Lamar again too. The new training program wants new missionaries to be with their trainers for 2 transfers and Sis. Christopher and Sis. Nef are in their 1st transfer together.

Last night, we had a birthday dinner for Elder Broby, which was pretty nice. Elders McGavin and Nielson made all of the food and there was 7up chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots and kool-aid like beverages. Brownies and ice cream were for dessert! After that, we had a nice lesson on the Plan of Salvation with some less-actives, who both made it to sacrament meeting earlier that day. :) Yahoo! Actually, we had 4 less-actives from our area at church!

People keep wanting to give us fruits and veggies to eat! It's kind of annoying sometimes, ha ha ha. We scored tons of plums and apples and we don't know what to do with them all. Maybe make applesauce?

I got some letters from cousin Chaz, and Noel this week, yay! I also just got a letter from an MTC friend serving in the San Diego mission and she said she went on exchanges with Maureen Davis a few weeks back! Boy, what a small world! She thought it was cool to make that connection. :) Sis. Uibel gets to come chill with us for 2 days this week since her companions have to go to Latvia, so I'm looking forward to that! We're actually going to go out to eat today, just sisters only. I don't know if the Elders are just jealous, but they said we can only do that just once a transfer, ha ha. Good thing a new transfer starts in about 2 weeks ;P Golly, I'm almost in my last 2 transfers... what???

So, here's my fail DVD player quote of the week! *written on back of player* " HIGH TEMP. CAUTION Please do not put it in the sun directly or near to the instrument in kitchen! They may change its shape or color, its surface can become hot if it worked long time, but this is not abort."

That's all I got this week! Thanks for all of the love and prayers!

Love,
Courtney

Monday August 22nd, 2011

All is well and good around these parts! We've had some fun things to do lately, so that helps to pump us up and enjoy our work a little more. Last Thursday, we actually had 5 lessons planned with investigators, and less-active members. I don't think I've ever had that many scheduled appointments in one day. In the Baltics, that's pretty good! So, I hope that's a sign that things are improving :)

Friday was exchanges with the Pärnu sisters! Sis. LeDuc leaves for Riga on Wednesday, and the back to the States on Thursday! That's so weird. Since she and I were together in Pärnu on Friday, it was just like old times, and it almost made me feel like I supposed to go with her, ha ha! Alas, my time has not yet come, but it is soon enough, goodness gracious! Time flies~ (they same the same thing in Estonian too :)

On Saturday, we came back up to Tallinn for zone conference, which was fantastic!! Pres. Boswell wants us to contact all of the members in our areas by October 23rd or somewhere around there. He wants us to make that our new focus, to teach all of the the lessons they learned before baptism. He actually hopes that this won't be finished before all of us leave the field! I'm hoping to get some more instruction and ideas on how to go about this, and working with members to accomplish at tomorrow's district meeting. After zone conference, most of the Estonian missionaries crashed at Kompressor for some yummy pancakes. They're deceptively filling. At zone conference, we were also given DVD players so we can watch the District, missionary training videos during our study or meal times. What's almost better than that was the hilarious instruction manual with it's poorly written Engrish. Here are some good ones:

-"After buying the DVD (player), please read the operations and other instruction of user manual carefully, the incorrect use will cause the damage of health and loose of wealth." That sounds like a proverb.

- "Note: avoid of the liquid of LCD screen touch body directly, when it was broken, the liquid has touched the skin, please wash your skin by mass water at least 15 minutes." Mass water??

Stay tuned for more, I just ran out of time today to list more ;) Thanks for all the love, support, and prayers. You're the greatest!!!!!

Lots of love,

Courtney

Monday August 15th, 2011

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure how some afford to live here and have long vacations, and summer homes, etc., especially when they complain about how little they earn. Hmmmm, go figure... Anyway, you'd almost think it's already Fall time here. It's been rather cool so in the mornings, I feel like it's time to go back to school. I think someone told me it's supposed to go back up to the low 80s later this week, ha ha. I hope y'all aren't dying back at home.

I don't know if it was our fault or what, but we're not going to teach Keili anymore for a while. Her member cousin finally came back from her month with her husband's family in the States so we asked her to call Keili and invite her to church. Maris (member) said that Keili just wasn't sure if this is what she's looking for, although we know she really enjoyed it only 2 months ago. I don't know what the deal is, if we were too persistant with following up on her while she was out of town, invited members to her house to teach with us, or a myriad of other things. When there are disappointments, all sorts of questions and theories pop up. Whatever it may be, we're just going to give her some space and still make her cookies or something from time to time. Maris is sure she'll come back, one day. Poor lil' Sis. Lamar is still pretty heartbroken about it. I think she was affected the worst. But, there's still hope! We had a great lesson with a guy last week, and we happened to see him on the street last week, and we saw Anne this morning on our way to sports. Last Saturday was her birthday, so she said she couldn't make it to church, but I know she wants to come again. Now we just got to get her to read more (and her son too!)

We had exchanges with the Russian sisters last week so I got to be with Sis. Hanks and Sis. Schnaidere (uh, spelling? I have no clue, but she's a mini missionary from Latvia :) I even got them a Russian lady to call whom I contacted on the bus. I keep half-joking with them that it seems like my job since I've been in Tallinn is to find the Russians people to teach. Half-joking. Lol. Surprisingly, we got a call from the sister missionaries down in Pärnu right after the exchange we had and they said that that we're doing another one, this time with them! I think I'm going back to Pärnu on Friday so I can be there with Sis. LeDuc, and we're going to do game night with the branch too! Awww, like old times~ We have zone conference on Saturday so we're going to come up to Tallinn early that morning. Sis. LeDuc only has about 10 or so days left! Egads! That's absurd. Anyway, it's probably better she's going straight from the mission right back into school at BYU.

Other than that, I'm not sure what else to mention... oh yeah! I scored 3 goals at Gatorball today! w00t! I think that's the first time I ever scored. Well, thanks to some great assists from Sis. Hanks ;) We also made our own chili con carne concoction last week that turned out pretty well with baked potatoes. Maybe we'll try that again this week. We should come up with some new meal ideas... we're kinda getting stuck in a rut, hehehe. Mom, I love how you always mention food in your emails. It makes me yearn for some good ol' homestyle cookin'.

Well, that's enough of that. Thanks for all the love and support, loved ones! You're the greatest!!! Thanks for the hugs and kisses too ;)

Love,

Courtney

Monday August 8th, 2011

This morning, Sis. Lamar and I got haircuts, well mine was just a slight trim. But yay, for soft, flowy, hair! We've got a bunch of new missionaries in Tallinn now, mostly in the Russian district though. Even a mini-missionary is joining the Russian sisters! She's from Latvia, but knows Russian and English well. I have to ask her how to write her name ;P

Great work, Mom! That's nice that sister knew she could turn to you for help. Our mission president also wants us to work with our branch president and council to work with less-actives and part-member families. Mostly, it's just been us doing it on our own, so I wonder what our district will try to do differently to help with that. We've been working with some less-actives, and it's slowly working. I think what helps is having them to member missionary work, so they're more prone to come with a friend they wish to introduce to the church. One of them should have been there on Sunday, but he's reaaaaaaaaly laaaaaaaaazy, and he's promised us so many times. At least we got him to come about 2 weeks ago. We got a round of high-fives for that from the Elders at the following district meeting, he he he.

Keili did come back to town, but she said she wasn't sure when she could meet. We had some other appointments set up this past week, but some of them got sick. Sometimes I wonder if they feel as sick as they say they do... So! We're praying for a happy, healthy week! We've done a lot of contacting, and a little bit of knocking. Last night we found a great couple and a young mom that said we could come back. The Russian Sisters are now teaching a young man we knocked into and got his phone number. He's been to church twice and has a baptismal date! I wish we had a good progressing investigator like that for ourselves, but oh well, I guess we're really working for the same team after all ;) We taught an old man from our English class on Saturday and he was the only person we invited who came to church. I don't know why he keeps coming to class since he's seeing little to no progress with his language, but maybe he's been prepared for a greater purpose :)

Last week's double FHEs were a blast! We were fed so much food! The Branch President's family even surprised us by busting out some homemade root beer floats!! Oh goodness, that was dreamy~ Apparently Elder Lane gave him the root beer extract ;) It's almost strange now to look out the window before bed and see the street lights back on at night, ha ha. Within 2 months, it'll probably starting becoming really dark. Oh boy~

The primary religion is Lutheran, with Russian Orthodox coming in 2nd and a good number of Baptists, Pentecostals too.

Thanks so much for the prayers and fasting on my behalf. It's been a better week, not exactly sure how. It's sure been exhausting at times! Uhhhhh.... I am all out of ideas of what to right now of what to write. Buuuuuut I love you all so so much! You're the greatest. Thanks for everything!

Love,
Courtney

Monday August 1st, 2011

LOTS OF RAIN, recently! We talked to a less-active member last night and she said that on Saturday, they got a month's worth of rain. Wish I could send a little your way! Today is beautiful though, and The Perrys, our senior couple, said that this week is forecasted to just be sunny. If it's like today, then I'd like it. :)

Today has been super fun! We went to Skypark a huge, trampoline/indoor playground place. It's more for kids, so it was pretty funny when a dozen or so adults took over the trampolines for a time, but when we migrated to the jungle gym, the kids rushed back ;) We even played out some war scenarios with foam balls and air turrets, and we used the plastic balls for grenades! It was very intense and tiring, ha ha ha. To finish it off, most everyone tried on the sumo suits and we had wrestling matches. I only watched :) Afterward, we ate some pancakes at Kompressor. Tonight we're doing FHE with the Branch President's cute little family! We also wanted to meet with another family this week, and dear Sister informed me that they're actually doing FHE on Tuesday night since she'll be out of town, so we're having back-to-back FHEs this week! Woohoo!

We didn't have any of our own investigators at church yesterday, but we saw a friend of a man whom we've taught once and invited him to church, and he came (after he finished his cigarette, lol) He stayed for all 3 hours and has a teaching appointment with the Elders :) Now that it's finally August, people will start migrating back into the city over the next few weeks so we can finally get some lessons and progressing investigators.

Transfers happen on Thursday. That means Elder Barney is leaving! So strange, especially since he was the last remaining member of my very first district here. I think there may be a lot of changes among the Elders here too. Who knows, since we have a new mission president now. A mini-missionary from Latvia is coming up to be with the Russian sisters this transfer, so that'll put them in a trio. I hope we can borrow one of them a couple of times to go knocking some day. That way we cover more ground, hehe ;) We've been contacting a lot of people on the streets and have met some cool people, but haven't been able to meet with them again yet. We're also trying to go through former investigators. Pres. Boswell wants us to focus on working with the Branch President and the branch council to find people to teach, so I hope we have a good lesson tonight with his family.

Not sure what else to write at the moment, so it's ta-ta for now! I love you all so dearly~!!

Love,
Courtney