September 5, 2011

Howdy howdy, Fam and Friends!

Yesterday and today have been absolutely gorgeous, weather wise~ No Labor Day here, but the 1st of September is a national holiday because that's when all the kiddos go back to school. Sis. S (native Latvian, but also Russian mini-missionary) had to go to Latvia to get her health tests and things done so she could complete her missionary application. So, Sis. Uibel came to chill with us for 2 days. Always a pleasure! It would have been more fun if we taught more lessons though, because we were stood up by almost all of the lessons we had at the church xP I don't know if having lessons scheduled at the church building is like more of an excuse for folks, NOT to show up... because usually we don't know their addresses if we just contacted them on the street and got a phone number.

As for working with less-actives, we've made contact with a lot of them, but haven't really been able to teach many of them yet. Many people have no valid phone number on file, just an address, but they're usually not home, so I guess we have to keep stalking some of them. Who knows, maybe they don't even live there anymore. We missionaries are mostly just collecting information so we can clean up the ward list because there is a lot of wrong information on it. Some less-actives might even seem impossible to find if they moved or don't have a working phone number (people change numbers here a lot, it seems), so we've sorta joked about having members do some internet stalking or something to try and locate these people. That sounds like something I'd enjoy doing, but alas, as a missionary, I have very limited internet access :P That could potentially be a very good resource though.

Anne came to church yesterday and so did a less-active member or two that are in our area! Slowly, we're seeing some improvement. We're really trying to work on our teaching skills and we realized that we have a lot we can work on. I really don't know what else to say, and now it's time to jet. Sorry!

Happy Birthday to all the birthday kids and thanks for all of the prayers and support!!

Lots of love,
Courtney

P.S. The mission president just issued an e-mail for the missionaries leaving the same time as me. My release date is actually Dec. 16th, just so you're aware.

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

Monday July 25th, 2011

Awwww, camping~ Fun fun! Our usual investigators were out of town, so not a lot of news about them. Sis. Lamar came back from her little trip to Parnu on Wednesday. Of course she fell in love with it, so she was a little bummed to come back to Tallinn, especially our area
which just has hundreds of huge apartment buildings.

Estonia just had Temple week last week, so our numbers at church were a just a little fewer, so I actually played the piano in church! Of course I've played in Relief Society, but I haven't had to play for sacrament meeting since my days in Parnu. I tried the organ a little earlier in the week as we were waiting for an appointment when I was with the Russian sisters. Speaking of Russian, I've had to use it so much lately! Sis. Lamar and I knocked one part of a 9-story apartment building and either people weren't home, they ignored us, or they were
Russian! We only talked to 2 Estonians that whole time! We had to do a lot of finding this last week, so that's always very tiring physically, mentally, and spiritually! We're trying to go through some former investigators as of late, and we had a lesson with one old lady last night, and we scheduled another for tonight. English class back on Saturday went really well! We had 3 new students, they're Russian, but they are friends of members, so at least member missionary work is happening! We gotta figure how to get that happen a little more in our branch.

Oh goodness, I'm the next one to come home? Wow, that's interesting! I guess I really am. The nice thing about this summer has been that as soon as the weather gets really hot, it seems to rain a day or two later, so that's kept it nice and reasonable. Some days it switches from sunny to rainy, so it's hard to keep track, especially since we don't normally carry an umbrella along with us, ha ha.

I think my time is almost up here, so gotta go! Sorry this is really lame, but I'm hoping and praying for better things this week! I think it'll happen ;) Thanks so much for the prayers and love. It means a lot to me ;)

Love,
Courtney

July 18th, 2011

Hello, everyone!

Unfortunately, this was more of a finding week since some of our lessons fell through and Keili is going on vacation. That's really tiring and makes the days seem a lot longer, but we're trying to stay positive. Soooooo, because it was a finding week, there isn't a lot of interesting news :P I was with Sis. Uibel for exchanges, and it's was pretty much a party being together with her. We helped peel and slice veggies for a wedding for some of the Russian members that was on Saturday. Unfortunately, we didn't even get to go to the wedding because we were helping Anton+Stela as they were moving to their new apartment. Really, it's just an upstairs of an old house, but it's been renovated on the inside. They live right next to some railroad tracks though, so I hope that's not too annoying. That means that now they don't live in our area anymore, but oh well :P All we did to help was just wash a few windows and then assemble the little grill they bought, and then prepare the food for lunch. That was fun, and it made me miss barbecues, ha ha!

We now have a good idea of what is happening for transfers in 2 weeks! I think Sis. Christopher is going to be training after being out in the field for 3 weeks, which probably means I'll be with Sis. Lamar for another 2 transfers (3 months). Therefore, we will probably still be in Tallinn too. I still like it here, but I hope I can make it to again to Tartu sometime! There is some leadership conference in Riga tomorrow, so Sis. Lamar is going down to Parnu to while Sis. Christopher goes to the conference. That means I'll be with the Russians again until Wednesday! Yay~ I love them!

We actually had a different investigator come to church! Anne only stayed for Sacrament meeting, but she enjoyed it, I think. Now we gotta get her teenage kids to come too! She even has a good member friend now too! We need to set up another appointment with her family this week :)

For Preparation Days, we usually go play sports for 2 hours and then e-mail and eat somewhere after that. Today we played soccer again, and I tripped over ball, so I had a nice fall and got the wind knocked out of me, but no pain, no gain, right? :P The main library is closed though, so we have to go to another library, or go to an internet cafe (like right now. This one is tailored to gaming too, but we stray away from that, ha ha) That's so weird to think all those young men are getting back from their missions now! I just realized that we will only have warm weather for another for another 2 months... I don't know if I'm happy or sad about that... ha ha!

Have fun on the camping trip! We've walked through some foresty-parks so it makes me really want to bust out a sleeping bag and roast some marshmallows! Even though we're in a big city, there are some parts where you can escape into nature and relax, so that's nice.

Elder McGavin told me my letter came, but he has yet to give it to me. Sorry there's not much more to tell! Thanks for all the love and prayers! I love you all so much.

Love,
Courtney

July 11, 2011

Hello family!! (and friends too~)

Dad showed me the insane pictures of the dust storm. CRAZY. That's so scary!! Things have been rather pleasant this last week, although we didn't have a lot of lessons this week like we'd planned. The problem is that tons of people are taking their month vacations now, so they'll be out of the country, or gone to the countryside, and we can't get ahold of them until mid-August. x( Keili was really busy covering another person's stuff at work this week, but we're accompanying her at the Perrys' house for FHE tonight. We also have an appointment for Wednesday. She doesn't really feel comfortable with us inviting members to come teach with us, but we hope that we can help her get some friends tonight, so that she'll let us bring them along.

We had a lesson with a family last Wednesday, and a member couple was going to come teach (they live in the same building), but that family wasn't home and wasn't answering their phone, so we went back to the members' apartment and looked at their wedding pics (they were married on Jan. 1st this year :) and drank some Sea Buckthorn juice. Anton had to look that one up on the computer for us, ha ha. It was interesting, but tasty with some honey. The Kilks are such a cute couple~ Anton was only baptized in February and Stela is sooooooo gorgeous~ I'll have to take a pic the next time we meet with them :) That same evening, we went contacting in a nearby park and there we met a lady who had lived in the U.S. for 10 years working mostly in Kentucky with horses, RANDOM! She was really cool, and when she said some English words, there was a heavy Southern accent, hehehe. It was so funny when she said "Gimme a kiss!" to her adorable little 3 year old, who was actually adopted from the U.S. I knew her child couldn't have been from Estonia because she was a cute little black girl :) The little girl now speaks Estonian, but she still understands English and will say some random English words like "bicycles!" We taught them a lesson on a bench, and I hope we can meet with them again soon! I know she wants to move to Canada to go back to work with horses, so our chances may be slim, but we'll see.

Mark's family sent me some great letters and pictures! Everyone thinks my nephews are so handsome and cute! I just hope my own future children will be as cute, hehehe ;) I don't really know what else to write about since not much happened this week. We had to do a lot of finding because we couldn't get any appointments with people. I hope this week will turn out a little better. I know we have exchanges with the Russian sisters this Thursday, and I think it's gonna be Sis. Uibel and I together, meaning that our trainees are going to be on their own for a little. I can't wait to hear how that goes, ha ha ha! Sis. Lamar is not good with directions at all so I'm afraid they'll get lost a lot, :P

Thanks for all the prayers and love! You're the greatest!
Courtney

Happy 4th of July, 2011

GOD BLESS AMERICA, MY HOME SWEET HOOOOOOME~

Wooooooweeee, I'm plum-tuckered out! Well, we ditched the BBQ idea because Elder McGavin came up with the idea of renting bikes for today, so we took a really long ride along the coast. Thank goodness it was overcast, but my skin is still slightly pinkish. It's been getting rather warm and muggy around here this last week. It makes for nice and sweaty public transportation rides because there's no a/c and not much air coming through the windows either xP For example, on Friday night, all of the Estonian missionaries from Tallinn and Pärnu went to attend the Youth Song and Dance Festival. Estonian's are very proud of their song festivals. They had hundreds of kids and teenagers singing and dancing, and it was neat to see that. I guess the MAIN song festival is in 2 years. Ok, back to the idea of public transportation. Riding to and back from the festival was just like a sauna, if not worse. On the trolley ride home, a group of young kids was smooshed up in the front with us and one of the kiddos said that nobody dares getting on the trolly because it's like a graveyard in here. Ohohohohohohoho, children can be a riot sometimes~ Sis. LeDuc and I had a good laugh at that!

I received a letter from Sis. Sally Sue Nelson back home. It was really sweet (and Mom, she mentioned you were a really great RS president!!) We had a zone conference with the Boswells on Saturday. I like them a lot already! President Boswell is quite funny. Odd thing is that while he was teaching us, he used a scripture that I
happened to read in personal study that same morning! And it's in a not-so-common spot too, so that made it even more amazing. 1 Thessalonians 1:5. Strange, right? I've been reading the New Testament on-and-off and I just happened to come across that and even shared that with my companion in our study time together that morning. We had short interviews with President and Sister Boswell on Sunday morning before church (which now starts at 11, yay~), just so they could quickly meet us. We'll have longer interviews at some later time in the month, I believe.

We taught Keili twice this last week, and she's great. I think she's just afraid of committing to a date simply because she's afraid of messing up, she thinks she's weak. I think she's just shy ;) We went back to an apartment that Sis. Lamar knocked on over a month ago when she was on exchanges with the Russians, and we set a return appointment with the man's wife and taught them later that week! They're really nice and we'll be teaching them again on Wednesday. Maybe we found ourselves a family to teach, because they have a 9 year old son too.

Anne of Green Gables?!?!? Ha ha ha ha ha! I don't think I've watched much past the 3rd video. I remember there was one random day that I decided to watch it with Stacey. We laughed a lot. We didn't realize Anne was that ridiculous when we watched it as children ;P Nice choice, Mom.

Time is just flying by~ It's really strange to think that the only remaining member of my first ever district, Elder Barney, is leaving in a month now. Gah, that means I have 5?!?!? Weeeeeeird. Our recent business has been making time seem like such a blur.

Well, that's pretty much all I've got for today! I love you all so much!

Love,
Courtney