Latvia Day 2

Today was exhausting. First off, we are still so jet lagged. We didn't notice the time last night, and when we finally checked the clock it was 2:30 a.m.!!!! We lost track of time watching t.v. and our bodies thought it was day time, so we were wide awake! Once we realized it was so late we went right to bed and fell asleep quickly. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and was wide awake again. I have never had jet lag this bad; not my first time in the Baltics, not in Panama, and not in Cambodia. Anyways, we finally got up at about 9:00 a.m. and went and had our free hotel breakfast. It was good- they had Russian pancakes.

Our original plan was to go to Vilnius, Lithuania today. However, we looked into bus tickets and found that it's a 4 hour ride each way; so we would spent 5 or maybe 6 hours in the city and 8 hours on the bus. And honestly, the bus rides always made me sick when I wasn't pregnant, I can only imagine how I'd feel now. So instead, we spent the entire day in Old Town and at several malls and souvenir shops. We found almost everything I wanted.

• We got these Russian stacking dolls (martrushkee):

Can you believe that there are 9 little dolls in here??? The last one is so ridiculously small that it makes us laugh every time we open it. Seriously, it's about the same size as the fingernail on my pinky finger.

• We bought pastries at two different pastry shops. This one is my favorite pastry shop in Riga; it's just a few doors down from our Church. Mitch liked the ones he tried. I wish we had pastry shops like these at home, so yummy!

• We went in 4 different grocery stores trying to find my beloved strop waffles. They're these flat waffle cones with honey in the middle. I LOVED them when I was here and I've been talking about how I can't wait to eat some for weeks now. And guess what??? They are no where to be found. SO sad!!!
• We rode the elevator to the 24th floor of the biggest hotel in Riga. This was our view:

• I got the coolest handmade mittens I've ever seen. Mitch thinks they look like a Muppet. I said I like them because no one else will have them since they're handmade in Riga and they only had 4 pairs of them. Mitch said that Jim Henson and I will be the only people to have a pair. Ha,ha.

• I wanted to buy a new coat here. (They have really cool coats here.) After searching all day, the last store we went into, which is one of my favorite European stores, Mango, had THE perfect coat and it wasn't too expensive. It is EXACTLY what I had in mind. I took a picture of it in the store:

The picture doesn't do it justice. And, I didn't buy the purse, it was just part of their display. You can wear the collar a few different ways. It's going to be my Christmas gift from Mitch. He said he'd give it to me as long as I don't cry when I open it and I can't button it up because of the baby. Ha,ha. I guess I'll always have it for next year, right?

• We took a lot of pictures of the beautiful parks and architecture today. Here are a few of my favorites:

• We at lunch at a Japanese restaurant in the mall. It was pretty good. Food is fairly cheap here. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant, if you can call it Mexican. The "original burrito" had pineapple in it and they had creme brulee for dessert. Ha,ha. Gotta love it. We accidentally ordered sparkling water instead of still. Disgusting! And, on the way home, we accidentally bought a HUGE bottle of sparkling instead of still to drink and brush our teeth with. We had to go clear back to the store that night just because the sparkling is SO gross we can't stand it.

• My favorite part of the day was teaching Mitch how to dress like a true Russian. I laughed several times through the day because he fit in so well! Here he is in his typical Russian outfit: jeans, black leather coat, black leather gloves, and black beanie (everyone pretty much wears only black here):

Overall it was a great day, but we were both so tired from walking around everywhere. We would have gone to the museum in Old Town, but we quickly learned that while the restaurants were closed on Sunday, a lot of the tourist places we wanted to see are closed on Monday. We're going to go there tomorrow.

The other thing I realized today is that people just don't speak Russian here anymore. I tried again and was either answered in Latvian or English. I know people are understanding me, because they answer me, but they refuse to speak Russian. It's quite different than it was 5 years ago. We've had a hard time figuring out what certain foods were or even simple things like if we should push or pull a door open because it's all in Latvian. Weird. Mitch keeps asking me what things are and I don't know because it's in Latvian. I think it was easier as a missionary because I could just ask a Latvian speaking missionary what something was. Now we're here on our own and it's more difficult, but we've been able to figure everything out. And of course, anyone age 35 or younger speaks English, which is totally helpful.

Now we're of to bed. Tomorrow we're meeting Sveta and Olga for dinner, which is exciting.

Latvia Day 1

Today is officially day one of our Latvia/London trip. I'm writing this in our hotel room and I will post it once we get home and I have the camera cord. As I'm writing this, we're in beautiful (but cold) Riga, Latvia. Here is the Latvian flag.

They fly their flag EVERYWHERE. After we'd been there for 3 days, Mitch asked, "What flag is that?" I couldn't believe he hadn't realized it after seeing it so often for the last 3 days. Ha,ha.

Today we flew from Utah to New York to London to Latvia. We landed in London on Saturday morning. We met up with Mitch's friend, Ben. Crazy story, Ben travels about 9 months out of the year. Recently he was in Japan and now he's on his way to Egypt. He just happened to be in London the same time as us. We were 20 minutes late to our meeting spot, but we still found Ben. We had lunch at a nasty English cafe. Seriously, our food was so gross and it was a total rip off. I never thought scrambled eggs or an omelet could be disgusting. Ben is doing well. We took him some corn nuts and a king-size Snickers bar as he requested. He seemed happy about it.

After that we got on our last flight for the day. We landed in Riga at 7:15 p.m. We took a taxi across town to our hotel. We're on the sixth floor and the elevator only goes to the fifth floor. By the time we finally dragged our suitcases up that last flight of stairs, we were SO exhausted!!! My poor pregnant body ached from hauling my luggage around between flights and on the subways. But I was relieved that we made it safely, we were both healthy, I didn't get sick on the flights, and I was back in Latvia.

We went and ate Greek food. It was just okay. They did have these funny waffles on a stick though.

We were so tired when we came back to the hotel. We planned to sleep for ten hours at least. But I wanted to wake up in time to have breakfast and be to the church by 11:30. We fell asleep by 10:30 p.m. and at 4:00 a.m. we were WIDE awake. It was awful! Boo jet lag!!! We stayed awake until 6:15 a.m. I fell asleep because I had a horrible headache from the poor lighting in our room. Mitch fell asleep too and when we woke up it was 11:30!!! We missed our free hotel breakfast and we were late to the church. When we finally got to the church, I found Sveta and quickly told her we've already seen General Conference (which they were watching via broadcast today) so we'd meet up with her after.

We went and ate at a Latvian restaurant down the street. We had traditional Russian food; Mitch had pelmeni and I had eggs and blini (pancakes). Mitch liked the pelmeni, but thought it was weird that everything was served with sour cream. I told him that's because the sour cream is SO delicious. It tastes quite different than American sour cream.

After that we went back to the church, met up with Sveta and Olga, and saw Elina. Elina is so grown up now! I was so happy to see her. She had to stay for the Latvian branch's Sunday services, so me, Mitch, Sveta, and Olga walked around Old Town Riga. It was beautiful. Cold, but so pretty. We went in some of the cathedrals. Left to right: Elina, me, Sveta, Olga.

There is a Russian Orthodox church in one of my favorite parks. The cathedral is pretty inside and out. Honestly, it's the only Russian Orthodox cathedral that doesn't scare me when I go inside. This one doesn't have any freaky/scary paintings, so it seems happier than most of the Orthodox cathedrals I've seen. I would have taken pictures, but you have to pay to do so, and I don't think that's right. If you really think it's a holy place, so holy that we shouldn't take pictures, then I don't think that money should change your thinking. It is a pretty cathedral, even if I don't fully agree with their teachings.

Anyways, we went in some Lutheran and Catholic cathedrals as well. Those were very pretty and really old. The Lutheran one is by far my favorite. There was a woman with a beautiful voice singing from the choir loft. Such a beautiful sound, they way it echoes around the cathedral. Mitch said, "I wish we had some cool cathedrals in Utah. Oh wait, we have temples." Ha,ha. Yes, and they're even prettier in my opinion. Here we are in front of the Latvian Freedom Monument. The lady on top is named Milda. Latvia put up this monument when they got their freedom from the Russians in the '90s. The three stars represent the three districts of Latvia.

After that we spent the rest of the time in Old Town. We were in our church clothes, so by the time we got done walking over the uneven cobblestone streets, my feet were killing me! High heeled boots are the completely wrong shoes to wear in Old Town. Mitch was frozen by the time we got back to the church. He told me, "You're right, the cold seeps into your bones," and later, when I told him if he thinks it's cold now, wait until February, he said, "I don't want to find out what it's like here in February. It's too cold now." Yeah, I don't know how I survived two winters here. But I really can't complain, Sveta served in Siberia and said it was -42 below (Fahrenheit).

We went back to the church. It was so great to see the same members still active after 5 years. This mission has almost a 100% retention rate. Once these people decide to do something, they go all the way and they don't leave. It's great! There were a lot of new members whom I didn't know, which is great too.

At that point, Sveta and Olga had to leave. We planned to meet up for dinner on Tuesday night. We stayed and spoke with Elina a while longer. She still speaks perfect English, which is good since she doesn't speak much Russian and I don't speak Latvian (she's Latvian). Mitch said that she sounds like an American. I agree. She is so cute, I just love her! I wish I could bring her home with us and she could be my younger sister. We had to say goodbye to her tonight. She's going to Sweden this week to go to the temple with a family she babysits for, so we won't get to see her again. I told her I loved her, she said she loved me and we walked away. I teared up as we walked away; I hope I get to see her again sometime.(Elina and I.)

It's hard to say goodbye to people here. I am so proud that Elina has made the choices she has and that she is such a sweet person. I'm tearing up right now. :) I told Mitch tonight that I don't know how I lived here as a missionary when it's so cold and I'm not in my own home with my own bed. Then I really thought about it and said, "It's because of people like Elina that I did it." And that's just so true. Elina, and Sveta, and Olga, and Leonora, and Neli. They make it so worth it!

After that bitter/sweet reunion/goodbye, we changed our clothes and set out to find Korina Zaharova. I'm pretty sure she went inactive, which is another story for another day. We took a 30 minute bus ride out to her house. Unfortunately, they've changed the locks on the domes. When I was hear before, you could fairly easily figure out the code and get in the building. Now the locks are all electronic and unless you actually know the code, you can't get in. You can call to an apartment and they'll speak to you through they're phone, then unlock the door for you by pushing a button inside their apartment. But, I wasn't sure what her number would be. I tried what I thought it was three times and got no answer. I was totally bummed. And Mitch was so cold. So, we left. I was really, really sad. I'm actually wondering if she moved because the curtains and plants in her window were completely different than the ones she had. And yes, she could have changed them, but people here just aren't like that, so I'm guessing she moved. So sad!!!

We went to the Maxima grocery store after that. We bought all the candy, crackers, and juice that I've been wanting to try. I still love all of it. I got Mitch hooked on these Selga crackers and as I've been writing he's literally eaten half the bag. Ha,ha. He's liked everything I've had him try, except sour cream on everything. We had pizza for dinner at a pizza joint. It's hilarious here; their favorite pizza, literally, is chicken, mayonnaise, cheese, and pickles. Yes, mayo and pickles. It makes me laugh everytime I think about it.

Britt, this picture is for you. Remember our mad dashes through Maxima on P-days (or rebelliously the day before P-day) so we'd have more time to e-mail???

Now we're back and relaxing after a long few days of flying and walking around in the cold. Everything here seems even more European than I remember.There is almost no Russian here any more. On my mission I would see signs and things in Russian. Now there is seriously nothing in Russian. And no one will speak Russian to me besides my friends. At the grocery store, I asked the clerk a question in Russian. She answered me in Latvian. So, she understood me, but felt "too good" to answer me in Russian. It wasn't this bad when I served here. I've always had a theory that in a few years the Baltics won't have Russian speaking missionaries. Latvia is trying to phase out the Russian language and influence. Not that I blame them; this was Latvia before the Russians invaded, but I love the Russian culture and hate to see it diminishing here. But, that's probably how it should be since it is Latvia and not Russia. It's weird to see how much it's changed in the last 4 or 5 years.

Well, the weather is cold, as I've mentioned several times, so that hasn't changed. It did not rain today, but the sky was overcast and depressing, just as I remember it. No wonder I now have Seasonal Affective Disorder. Ha,ha. I was so happy today to see my friends. They are amazing people and I look up to all of them so much. I'm so glad I got to see them again!!!!!

It's Good To Be Back Home

We recently returned home after two weeks in Europe ... ahhh, it's so nice to be back in the good ol' U.S.A.! Don't get me wrong, it was so neat to see all the sights and we had a great time, but there really is no place like home. Every time I travel to another country I am reminded of how blessed we are to live here.

I tried to keep a little journal of each day while we were gone, but to be honest, most days by the time we got back to our hotel room I was SO exhausted that I didn't write. I'm going to try and post each day of our trip over the next week or so. But to sum it all up, I'd say that being in Latvia again was euphoric ... and really cold; London was lovely but British food is disgusting; Paris was dirty, the people are rude, but the food is divine; and New York was a lot better than I'd expected. We walked A LOT, we saw A LOT, and we enjoyed ALL of it. Stay tuned to hear more!

We're having a ...

little, baby GIRL!!!!

We are so excited! We didn't have a preference as to boy or a girl since it's our first; we're just glad that she is doing well. It's funny, I was so sure that it was a boy that I think I made the doctor doubt himself. Right after he said, "It's a girl!" I said, "Really??!! Are you sure??!!" Ha,ha. It's not that I wanted it to be a boy, I really didn't have a preference, I just thought it was a boy. So much for mother's intuition I guess. Maybe that doesn't start until after the baby is born. :) But the doctor was about 90% sure it's a girl, so we'll go with that. We can't wait to have our little GIRL join us!

A Few Things I Love

1. The new TV show, "Glee." It's on tonight at 8. It cracks me up.

2. Pumpkin flavored desserts during the holidays. Yum.

3. Our cat, Harvey. He also cracks me up. Last night he totally fell off of the banister and down the stairs while Mitch and I just laughed. Okay, while I laughed. Mitch got upset at me for not helping him since I was closest. What can I say? It was funnier to watch him hang from the railing and finally fall down than it would have been to save him. Don't worry, if it had been life or death, I would have saved him. I just knew that he wouldn't get hurt if he took a little fall ...

4. My husband. He is so sweet! Last week he sent flowers to my work with a card that said how excited he is to be a dad. I smiled for the rest of the day. I feel like my life is a fairytale (besides work) and Mitch is my handsome prince. He always exceeds my every expectation and makes me happier than I ever expected to be. He's going to be such a good dad. Awww, I love you, Hubby!!!

Holla, Elder Holland!

Alright, "holla" is as "gangsta" as I get. And Elder Holland's name always makes me think "Holla" for whatever reason. We probably shouldn't have favorite apostles, but I do: Elder Holland. Have you ever seen him lay the smackdown to the missionaries on the Preach My Gospel video? I think I saw that at least 5 times on my mission and I loved it every time. It gives me chills to see Elder Holland so passionate, dramatic, and zealous. It excites me. I truly enjoy Conference weekend and look forward to it every spring and fall. This time was no exception. Mitch and I made crepes and filled them with fruit, yogurt, home-made whip cream, eggs and sausage, etc. Delicious. Then we sat on the couch for way too long, went the gym in between sessions on Saturday so we didn't feel too fat, enjoyed one another's company, and learned more about TRUTH. The whole thing was great, but as usual, my favorite was Elder Holland's talk. He's just so blunt. If you didn't get a chance to hear it, you can listen to it here.

I loved what he said about The Book of Mormon, "For 179 years this book has been examined and

attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart, like perhaps no other book in modern religious history, perhaps like no other book in ANY religious history, and still it stands. Failed theories about it's origins have been born, paraded, and died. ... None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book have ever withstood examination, because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as it's young, unlearned translator. In this I stand with my own great grandfather, who said simply enough, 'No wicked man could write such a book as this, and no good man would write it unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.'

I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this Latter-Day work and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these our times, until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough, or mislead enough, to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text, teeming with literary and semitic complexity, without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages somehow, especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and their profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers, if that is the case, then that person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived. And if they leave this Church, they must do so by crawling over, or under, or around the Book of Mormon to make their exit. In that sense, the Book is what Christ himself was said to be, a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. ...

I hope I have a few years left in my last days, but whether I do or do not, I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgement bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I can summon, that the Book of Mormon is true. That it came forward the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and give hope to the faithful in the travail of the last days."

Like Elder Holland, I hope that when I stand before God that He knows that I KNOW that the Book of Mormon is true. I have gained so much from reading it time and time again and I feel it's true when I read it. I know it contains the peace and answers that we are all looking for. It truly testifies of Christ and has brought me closer to Him. It seems that the busier my life becomes, the less I read from it. Ironic how the opposite would be the most beneficial: the busier my life becomes the more I should read from it's pages and gain the insight and divine help that is offered from doing so. Thankfully Conference always reminds me of these things so I can improve. :)

If you can, watch of listen to the talk. He is such a passionate speaker and his words are more fully understood when they are heard than read. And to sum it all up, "Amen!!!"