Week 44: April 28, 2014

Hey folks!

It's been a real good week. One of the pictures I attached is the portrait that I drew of Sister Roy (Obviously hair is a struggle for me) and then the other one is of the zoo. I'm now moving on to drawing a portrait of Anna, so wish me luck with that sucker. She's cute though so it won't be too rough :)

I forgot to tell you that a few weeks ago, we finally got a chance to do service for Sister Shamshura. We basically just stacked wood for her, but it was so nice to be able to help her. It gave me a chance to get to know her a little better and ever since then, I've felt a lot more comfortable talking to her. 

This week we were able to stack wood and help Valentina garden. I was turning over the soil with a shovel and the whole time, everyone was so impressed with my technique and they kept saying, "Well, she is from Idaho. Of course she knows what she's doing." I didn't bother mentioning that picking raspberries or peas while my grandpa trims or digs is about the extent of my gardening experience, but I thought it was pretty funny. 

During that time, I made the mistake of not understanding a Star Wars reference and consequently asking what it was from. Now Elder Hansen is determined to tell me every detail of the whole saga (can you call that a saga? I've never seen it). We're about two hours in and I just found out who Darth Vader is. I'm counting my lucky stars that it's only on Mondays that Elder Hansen has to, in his words, "culture" me. He's a hoot.

And, random side note, there's a fair that came right by our apartment and every day we walk by it, I feel like we're in America because it's usually playing music from Grease and there's a ride with the statue of liberty on top. It feels like summer here.

Last week we were able to go to the zoo as a district and that was really fun. I was actually super impressed with Daugavpils' zoo because even though it's tiny, it looks awesome. As you can see from the picture, it looks like a jungle inside. The coolest part to me was that they had lots of open cages and there was a colony of ants crawling along the branches above our heads. I took a picture with a monkey for Riv. He would have loved it. 

We also went to the Crepist (a really old fortress) and it was fun to go through all of the underground tunnels. We didn't have much time but I figure I'll be here another transfer so I'll go back sometime.

My favorite part of the week was our "girls' night" that we had with Zita, Lidija, and Anna. We watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration in English because all of them are fluent and it's more powerful that way since Zita speaks better English than Russian. Zita is a very tender person and she cried for most of it. She didn't understand why Joseph had to go through so much and why so many innocent people were persecuted and killed. She said, "It doesn't seem fair that he received all of those things from God and then he didn't even get to do anything about it before he was killed." It was cool to be able to say, "Well look at where we're at right now. We're in a church building in Latvia because of what he did. He didn't die in vain because we're here." She came to church on Sunday and she is doing really well. I really love her a lot.

We also had another lesson with Inna on Saturday. Teaching her English is so fun. For the spiritual half of the lesson, she wanted to read the Book of Mormon, so we read the intro and answered a bunch of her questions. We're also going to do the quit smoking program with her on Thursday, so we're happy about that. She came to sacrament meeting on Sunday and even though she came late and left right afterwards, I asked her what she thought about it and she said, "It's like medicine here." I'm so excited for her to find out that she can have that kind of feeling with her 24/7. She told us on our lesson on Saturday that "the Mormons live a perfect life". I thought that was interesting and it made me want her to find out for herself all the more.

I finally finished reading Doctrine and Covenants! So many things that I've always skimmed over have jumped out at me. I started reading the Pearl of Great Price and something in Moses 1 struck me. In the first chapter, it tells of God's visitation with Moses and how He shows Moses the world and all of His creations therein. I circled every time that He addresses Moses, because a few times, he says "my son", and if you pay attention to what His message is to Moses, it's a lot about his divine potential. It's interesting to contrast that with Satan's appearance soon afterwards, where some of the first words out of Satan's mouth are, "Moses, son of man". Aren't the differences between the two so illustrative of every situation in our lives? It is always the Spirit of God telling us that we are His; that we have potential to become just as He is and that we need not stoop below our privileges. On the other hand, it's always Satan trying to make us forget who we are and Whose we are. For Moses, it was very clear that it was God talking to him and then that it was Satan talking to him. In our days, it's not quite as easy to distinguish the source of our thoughts, of the comments of others, or of anything that we choose to listen to or surround ourselves with. I think this experience that Moses has is a good example of what we can apply in our judgments, though. We can determine if whatever we are hearing or thinking builds us up to become as God is or if it diminishes our potential and stunts our growth. By those measures, we can know perfectly the source of whatever it is we're dealing with. 

I realize that making decisions in life is hardly ever that black and white, but I think that the more we apply small truths like this, the easier it becomes to see things as they really are.

I had always thought that the more involved people were in this church, the more "Mormon-y" and less relatable they become. Now that I'm here, I realize that's just plain stupid. Of course there are people who are more judgmental and don't seem to understand the most basic Christlike character of service and charity, but basing our activity and studies in this church on the conduct of others is pure idiocy. Our religion and God's purpose for us is to soak up as much truth as we can and to study and to become and to not take the easy way out of things by stepping away from the church because we think "the members are way too judgmental". Our attitude should be to be the change that we'd like to see--to be the example of acceptance and Christlike service that we wish we could see in our wards or branches. Let's think a little less about what we'd like to become and a little more about what God created us to become, because I can guarantee that His vision is going to leave you a lot happier and capable. God didn't make us to be acted upon: He made us to act. We are the forgers of our faith and it is up to us to fulfill and magnify our callings in the best way that we know how, so that we can be beacons to those who otherwise wouldn't have stepped up without our example.

I love you all and I thank God every day that you're a part of my life. I'm prayin' real hard for you every day and I'm grateful that you're doing the same for me.

Love,

Sister Goochka