Wednesday, July 16, 2008

July 16: Baltic Chŗonīcļe: Juras Svetki, Return of Pavil the Spider, and Playing with Bones

All: 93.94 KM (117,459 steps).
Čili Pica is pronounced "Chilly Pizza." And Čili is chilies, like peppers, and pica is Pizza. It's a pizza place. I guess that might have been confusing without any pronunciation help. This week was rather eventful:

It turns out that Liepāja is the place to be during the summer. There was yet another party this week--the Juras Svetki (sea holiday). There was a carnival with an art show, a circus, and several performances. This was at Fontain again (that place is GREAT!), and lasted all day (and all night for the adults). There were people from Taiwan (that also spoke fluent Japanese...I had some fun talking to them a little bit), as well as random Germans on a 3000 KM bike ride through multiple countries, as well as a host of people from at least six countries. It was a party! There was also a guy who was trying to claim he was a native American playing the panpipes and guitar on the street corner in front of Kurzeme (a big mall). Random.

Also, we had quite a rush ourselves. We were walking back from a meeting at the edge of town, and we hear much pounding on a window. We figured it was going to be somebody who would wave at us or something, so we looked over with only half interest. We saw the face of Pavil the Spider in the window. He opened the window and yelled (in Russian, of course), "Wait! Wait! I want to talk to you! That one! He speaks!!" Meaning E. Bodily spoke Russian. Anyway, he rushed us into his house, and showed us the mountain of religious books he has. He actually had them marked up a great deal, and then went through talking to E. Bodily for half an hour. The atmosphere there was crazy, but we came out alive (I don't think Pavil kills people anymore), for which we were grateful. And we have another meeting with him, so technically, he is now our investigator. Cool! He told one of the women in his house that he invited us over some time ago, and even though it took a long time, we finally made it over!

In other news: we have two new investigators besides Pavil.
O.: he's a soccer player for the Metalurgs team here. He's really good, and very focused on his family. He, however, is amazingly busy, so we don't know how often he can meet.
U.: this is a man here for a few months for medical reasons. He is very humble, and very willing to listen. He was at church last Sunday, and meets with us whenever he can. He also attends our English classes.
J. missed church again, so no baptism date any more. He's still an investigator, but he cannot be baptized this transfer.
But, I did invite a random family to church, and the husband and wife came. They invited us over this week, and I feel they are genuinely good people. I'll keep you posted on them.
A. has a busy week this week, but this weekend we have a meeting with him again. No idea how that will go.

Emily, I want you to know that I played FARKLE with the branch here during FHE (family home evening). Dice are called kauliņi (little bones), which I found humorous. Anyway, a few of the members really got into the game, and I felt the heat while playing! It was great!

Viss (All.). Es jūs milu is I love you, in the plural form (meaning all of you).
--
Elder Argyle

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