Week 9: August 26, 2013

Heyooo!

So this has been the most insane week of my life. Seriously, I don't even know what to do with myself. The flight over here was really good! Ask me when I get home about placing a Book of Mormon in the DC airport because it's a funny story but it can wait. We almost missed our flight to Riga from Frankfurt because they printed the wrong gate on our ticket and we literally sprinted for twenty minutes to the other side of the airport and barely made it on time. That flight was the worst because I was feeling super nervous and barfy. Haha the Riga airport is pretty ghetto too, so that was fun.
We got into Riga center, which is where the mission home is. There's a new youth center that we put all of our luggage in and did orientation in. The first thing we did was go get our citizenship or whatever for Latvia and then we went contacting. Which was just--no words. Haha people in Riga center are in a hurry and not the friendliest but it's okay because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to talk to someone who looks like a grease ball either. And that's how I looked, btw.. So gross from the flight.

I went contacting with a Latvian speaking sister so it was rougher than usual.

We spent a few nights in a hotel there doing orientation and getting to know Pres. Boswell, which was awesome. He and S. Boswell are the bomb. We had interviews and talked about how not to get fleas and it was good stuff. I'm officially paranoid. Latvian food was AMAZING though. Like, better than American. And if you know me, that's really saying something.

So they gave me my companion on the third day and her name is S. Weaver. She's from Spanish Fork and she's the best. I don't know how I got so lucky but we get along super well and she's great at making me participate. I made a deal with her that I would make the first initial approach with every contact and say as much as I could and then she'd bail me out. It's brutal but I'm learning a lot. 

We're in Vilnius, Lithuania! The bus ride from Riga is about four hours but for some reason it took five. As we drove into Vilnius, my thoughts were like, "I thought this was a lot prettier on Pinterest." Hahaha it's sooo soviet here. The buildings are all ugly, grey, dirty, and graffiti'd. And there are huge apartment buildings for milessss. But it's cool because there are random patches of forest so that's pretty. And S. Weaver tells me that Vilnius is gorgeous, it's just our area that's ugly. Today we're gonna explore old town, which is the pretty part, apparently. I'll just have to take her word for it.

It rains a lot here, and it's super bipolar. One minute it'll be pouring and the next it's really sunny. But the past two days have been nice because the sun is out and the humidity isn't too bad.

I got over jet lag really fast, so that's good news. My apartment is super ghetto from the outside and I only recognize it from the graffiti but the inside is pretty nice! I really can't complain because we don't have cockroaches. And that's all I ask. 

So we've had a lesson every day since I've been here, which apparently doesn't usually happen. Our first lesson that we had was with Galena and Margarita, a mother and daughter who are really devout Catholics. On the way to the lesson, we took a bus and I was talking to this lady. She asked me how old I was and I told her eleven. Haha such a confidence booster right before my first lesson. But they are so cool! Obvoiusly I didn't understand everything (maybe one word for every thirty or so) but it was cool that I was still able to feel the Spirit when I testified. They had tons of hard questions that we didn't really know how to answer and we actually have to pass them to the Lithuanian elders because they speak better Lithuanian than Russian, but it was a great experience!

We had lunch one day with a member couple, the Haas family. The wife is from Lithuania and the husband is American. They made us German food and I realized that I absolutely despise dill, which is bad news because they use it in all of their bread. Pretty sure I'll get used to it. But the wife was suuuper nice. She told me her conversion story and it cracks me up how animated these people are when they talk. How loud they are, really. 

Our other lesson that we had was actually a miracle. So there's this member Yanina who has a friend named Yakov. He is blind and the missionaries have tried to talk to him before but he was really against it. Anyway, a few weeks ago he was super drunk and he fell in his apartment and cut himself really badly on his neck and bled all over his apartment. The missionaries helped Yanina clean it up so his heart was softened by that a lot. Yanina was supposed to come to our lesson with Galena and Margarita yesterday but when we knocked,  they weren't home. So Yanina is a champion of the sun and suggested that we stop by Yakov's. We went and taught him an impromptu lesson on prayer. He's really hard to understand and he yells a lot but it was so cool that we finally established a relationship with him.

Another great lesson was with Eddy and Nowi. They're from India and we taught them with Elder Packham and Elder Hall, two Lithuanian elders. We didn't expect much from that lesson because we mostly felt like they were just meeting with us because they wanted friends but we got there and  taught them the entire first lesson. They are awesome people and Eddy was super interested. Sort of funny thing that happened: they offered us Coke and I don't really like it but they brought me a mug of it anyway. I took a few sips and then set it on the table next to Elder Packham, hoping that they wouldn't be able to tell that I didn't drink all of it until I left. Haha but Elder Packham is the bomb and when we were about to leave, he saw my cup and just downed it because he didn't want them to be offended. Then we all cram into this tiny, nasty elevator and E. Packem burped right in my face. It was the worst because he ate curry earlier and oh my gosh, just so gross. He was laughing so hard. Har har.

Church on Sunday was great. Probably the most overwhelming experience of my life as of yet, but super funny. Everyone is so nice! I sat by this guy whose name I have no idea how to spell (Alvidas) but he was really nice to me and was helping me with Russian. Church is so different here. There were about forty-five people who came and apparently that's more than usual. I tried to introduce myself to every person but only ended up getting like twenty-five. They all think my Russian is cute, which is better than annoying, I guess. Haha I've set a goal not to talk about how crappy it is, so we'll leave it at that. 

I've already had a lovely amount of embarrassing moments. Haha first of all, I can't tell when people are drunk unless they're swaying or their eyes are all squinty and they smell like pee. Good thing Sister Weaver knows the smell and all that because she's had to pull me out of a few conversations. There are benches right outside our apartment that are always occupied by a group of drunk guys having the time of their lives. And by that I mean they're yelling. Haha it's entertaining. There's also a lady that feeds the birds every day right by our apartment. I don't know how she doesn't pee her pants when she sees a hundred of those things flocking towards her.

Birds, cats, and dogs are now the enemies of my soul, by the way. And speaking of dogs, we asked this guy if we could talk to him for a minute about our message and he was walking his dog. Apparently his response was, "You can talk to my dog," all sassy-like and, me, not knowing Russian, thought he said, "My dog likes you!" So I start cooing at the dog and waving at it and then as we walked away I realized how stupid that looked. Hahaha sometimes it's a good thing that I don't know what is going on.

So everything is really good with me. It's definitely an eye opener that I don't even know how to start natural conversations but I'm learning a lot really fast. Pres. Boswell gave us this really good talk called "The Fourth Missionary" and it talks about giving your whole heart, might, mind, and strength to the Lord. I never really understood what that meant until I read the talk because it seems like a super vague thing to me. But something the guy said was, "There isn't anything we can give the Lord that he doesn't already have except for our will." I never realized that. The Lord has given us free agency and we are in charge of our desires and all that, but He asks us to give that to Him. I guess that's the difference between the people who live the law of consecration and those who don't. I'm trying my best to give up thinking about the future/home as much and to completely give my will to Him. Good things are coming my way; I can feel it.

I can't wait to see pics of Jared's wedding! I wish I could have heard from you guys this week but I hope everything is going well. LOVE YOU ALL!

Love,

Cectpa Gooch