Kraukli

Kraukli means crow in Latvian. And that is where we headed last week to Camp Crow.  They don't really use the word camp in Latvia, they have guest houses here...so much more dignified, but we needed a facility to house 50 kids and chaperone's in two months  and our District Young Women's president and her husband, the Center Branch Young Men's president, found a guest house online that looked promising and they wanted us to check it out.  We took along a 50Lat deposit in case we liked it....

Road Trip! 

So we picked up Linda and Ritvard and headed north to the pretty port town of Salacgriva, Latvia.

Kraukli guest house is about 10 minutes into the country side.

It is easy to chat with Linda and Ritvard, they both served a mission in England and they are very good English speakers.  And they see how much the church in Latvia needs to grow to become as strong as the English saints.

So we chatted about Latvia on the way up to Kraukli (about 1 1/2 hrs. from Riga) and learned a great deal. Ritvard is a Latvian policeman and knows a lot about the city of Riga. He also knows the traffic laws which was a big help to Elder Davis...we never noticed the cameras placed along the highways before...and now we do!

We drove on unpaved roads for about 10 minutes which Linda says is very normal in the countryside. It was a gorgeous day and we saw lots of stork nests before we drove up a small road to this gorgeous guest house...although it looks like a camp to Sister Davis.

There are actually two of these big lodges on the property. This one had a sauna, showers, 2 bathrooms, a lounge, a huge dining room and about 20 beds on the top floor. The owner, a man named Edmunds, said this farm has been in his family for several generations.
He gets loans from the European Union to make this into a guest facility and has been improving the site for several years. This building  used to be the animal barn! Edmund's has done a lot of the work himself...

There is lots of open space here...with picnic tables, sports fields, and water features, all set in a forest of pine trees.

This is the pond for swimming in.....

A stage that will be perfect for a talent show or fireside....

Play equipment and something you don't see every day...a raised basketball court.

The indoor sauna...

The second story dining hall and a great place to have a dance....

 
This place had so many of the things we needed for a successful youth conference. We had already found a place for the Young Single Adult Conference but Elder Davis said this place was much better....so we decided to ask if they had the week in August free to have YSA conference here. And guess what? They had a reservation, but no one ever put down a deposit so for a 50 Lat deposit we could have it that week! Yeah, Elder Davis quickly called the Student Council to tell them of this better facility... "Is it okay to change our venue for the YSA conference?" 
Two said, "Go Ahead" and we did.

Inside the guest house was beautiful wood everywhere...you could tell that Edmunds takes great pride in making the place look good. Each bed has it's own bedding and he built "cubby's" for guests to store their luggage or bags.

There were 13  bedrooms like this...

And Sister Davis is just thrilled there are "Flush" toilets!

But the best surprise was when Edmunds took us up the trail into the forest a little ways.

Along side the nice stream that runs through the property...a great place to fish or jump into after sweating in the sauna....

And the surprise?  Edmunds  had spent a lot of time building a ropes course.

Wow, the young men are going to love that!

We were told this was the "easy" one....

Even Elder Davis had to try it....

 

Edmunds designed these and helped build them.  A whole lot of work went into making this course.....

Walk across this hanging log without anything to hang onto?  "No, Thank YOU!"

And for those who have always wanted to climb a rock wall...sideways--here you go.

Well, what do you think? Is this a great place to have youth/YSA conference or what?

To celebrate, we took Linda and Ritvard to lunch in Salacgriva.

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Linda and Ritvard...

they are a cute couple and are expecting their first child in a couple of months 

We found a  little place on the water front called "Minhauzens".

As Sister Davis was waiting for her food to arrive, she asked, "Who's the old fashioned guy standing behind you?"

Ritvards looked over his shoulder and said, "That is Minhauzens. He is famous around here and just down the road there is a museum all about him."

And on that happy thought, we leave the blog for another day.....