Feb 25: Baltic Chŗonīcļe: Concert, Investigators, Art Museums, Lunch

From: Jordan Argyle

Date: 2009/2/25
Subject: Feb 25: Baltic Chŗonīcļe: Concert, Investigators, Art Museums, Lunch

All: I broke 100K steps. 103,268 (80.55KM). YAY!

Pictures:
First: This is a thing that's hanging up in Lidojošā Varde. (restaurant) It's awesome. Behind, you can see the pillow. One of these is on every chair. Amazing!

Second: The middle dining room features two of these kinds of figurines. They're big enough to get pictures next to. Really bizarre. But I like 'em!

Third: The art museum was a gorgeous building. Here's only one shot (I have many).

Fourth: These are all the people who ate at Lidojošā Varde, and who came to the museum (very close to that cafe/resturant). From left to right: Elders Bostwick (sp?), McLaren, Me, Payne; Sisters Largey, Hagen, Wilson, Norris. I love them all. If you ever see this (any of you), I love you all!

Fifth: I couldn't resist. Too bad you can't actually see my face...oh well.

Last: I had to send this. This is our concert. There were a lot of people at it.

This week's Sunday was nuts: We had many an investigator (and G., who became our investigator later this week), so we talked to them, and couldn't figure out which ones to sit by. But fortunately, some of them took care of each other. My comp was translating for his first time, and he got frustrated while I was counting people in the hall (I need to send the attendance to the office each week), so as soon as I was done with that I had to translate. And after that our Investigator class didn't have a teacher, so we did that really quick. And somebody asked a question that pulled the discussion in a bizarre direction. And THEN in priesthood we had a scam-artist/strange person (long story, I'll probably tell it in a minute) come in and sit through, so we talked with him. Then I had my meeting with the branch president (so we're creeping up on four hours of speaking only Latvian--that's a little tiring sometimes), so we discussed our stuff, and some members came in with random problems, and...yeah. It was quite a crazy Sunday. And, interestingly enough, that wasn't all that happened (I just decided it's better not to list everything), and that's not all that abnormal.

Lidojošā Varde (The Flying Frog): It was amazing. This place takes first place out of all the restaurants I have ever eaten at. A few pics are included. The food is amazingly good, and the place is decorated amazingly! It's basically what I want my dining room in my house to look like someday. And it was fun hanging with some missionaries. Especially because there isn't a single not awesome missionary (as in awesome person) in Rīga right now. A few that are occasionally frustrating, but none that aren't amazing.

Miscellaneous Questions (Well, the answers to misc. Q's):
Helvijs is a stud of a member that lives in Imanta. He was a missionary in Lithuania, so he knows how to teach and has been very helpful. He was the center of the youth group when he lived here before his mission, and he made sure baptisms and stuff were great! His family members are not members of the church, but they now respect his decision. He was baptized when he was 17. Ainārs is a little older than me. Aivars Bite is another amazing youth. He's got 26 or 27 years, and also helps teach often. Bite is a two-syllabled last name. I sent a picture a while back with four youth in it. Both Helvijs and Aivars were in the picture.

Basically every person here has a cell phone, and they use them. A lot. They double as MP3 players, planners, alarm clocks, and various other things. I think I'm getting too dependant on these things, too...

That scam-artist: So, to add random to random. This guy was a lesson that Elder McLaren and I had. The first thing he did was tell us that he owns an organization called the "Super Christans," and his goal is to unite all Christians together. He then asked if we'd join him. We said "No." He then asked where we were from. In a super thick American accent. He asked for ID, because he "didn't believe that [we were] from America." So, he stared at Elder M.'s passport copy for a really long time. And the way that he talked was super sketchy, and he never actually answered any of the questions we asked. So, we thought he might be a scam artist. But, while we've been talking with him more, he is just an odd person. But he REALLY wants us to come visit him in his church. Anyway...

For other things, we went to an art museum last week after going to Lidojošā Varde. It was pretty cool. Although, there was many a missionary with whom we went who don't really enjoy art museums. But, I enjoyed it a lot. We also held a concert in Center (in America, it would probably be called a musical fireside...). The Russian district and the Latvian sisters performed 10 numbers (and one was done by Artjom, a member from Daugavpils who will be leaving on his mission next month). Over 100 people attended the concert! And about half were church members. The other half were people from English classes, investigators, and random folks. It was way exciting! Speaking of English:

Investigators:
We had several good lessons this week. Many of those come from English. One is quite the miracle.

G.: This fellow works in England, where he ran into some missionaries. He then got a Kaniga (book, Russian), and then a Grāmata (book, Latvian) of Mormon. There was a missionary or a member there from Latvia, who was able to translate everything for him into Latvian, so he was able to understand some things. He asked where the church was here, and attended the Russian branch last week. This week he attended the Latvian branch. He also came to our English class, and we taught him after. He is full of good questions, and he's very accepting of everything we've taught. He understands the importance of prayer in the process of obtaining a testimony. But, he'll be going back to England March 3rd, so we hope to teach him as much as we can before he goes back. Oh, and his wife is kinda against it, and she's having a baby. So...yeah, it's a delicate situation. But he's amazing! Gu.: Well, this fellow is kinda being weird. He's not from English; we knocked into him. He tells me over the phone that he's read, and prayed, and he's ready for more. But, when we set up lessons with him, he doesn't come and turns his phone off so we can't call him. Odd...We're going to give him one more go (because he was just that awesome), and we'll see what comes of it.
A.: So, he's from English class also. Last Sunday, he heard it announced in Sacrament meeting that the missionaries were looking for help, and that people who wanted to help could sign up their availability. After, he asked me what we needed help with. I told him, "With teaching." I explained how it worked, and he signed up to help us teach. He's so awesome. He is having some difficulty with finding out from the Holy Ghost if these things are true. He said his answers normally come from other people, so we're thinking (well, I'm thinking) it might be perfect for him to teach another person the factual parts of the gospel (which he knows very, very well), we'll testify, and as the other person (the one we're teaching) learns the truth of it, A. will as well. We'll see what happens.
T.: He's kinda vanished. I don't know why. I don't know if we have his number either. We'll see what's going on (a guy wrote us a text in English and at the end wrote "T.," so maybe it's him). There's also a really annoying guy who could have written that text who goes by T., so...we'll see.

That's probably about all. Loves and such! Sorry this is so huge! It was just a good week!
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Elder Argyle
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