Saints by the Sea

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds religion classes called Seminary & Institute  (S&I)  during the school year for young people to have an in depth study of the scriptures. This year the Latvian students studied the books of the Old Testament. These classes give students the opportunity to understand the doctrines that Christ taught and how they can apply the lessons in their lives today.


We have been told by our prophet, Thomas S. Monson,  to make Institute a priority. Institute classes are for Young Adults 18-30 years old...but in the Baltic most Institute classes are combined with the seminary age kids, 14-17 year olds.  Not only does Latvia not have very many students, we don't have very many teachers, so it makes sense to combine the classes.


In the spring, a graduation ceremony is held to honor those students who completed the course. Elder & Sister Davis, along with Noemi, planned a ceremony in the coastal city of Liepaja, Latvia. The class there had about 12 people attending (several older than YSA age) and they deserved some recognition for their diligence.

Early Sunday morning we drove to the coast....with Noemi, snacks, a dozen roses, brownies, and paper products. We got there in time to unload everything and get to the chapel before sacrament meeting started. Only there were so many people in attendance, the only seats left were the front row!

Two students talked about what they learned in seminary, a young single adult talked about institute class and the teacher, Kristina gave a talk.

The Branch President gave some remarks at the end of sacrament and then Noemi and Sister Davis gave out flowers to those who attended the combined Seminary/Institute class.....


Kristina, on the right in the photo below,  is an excellent teacher, one of the best that Sister Davis has ever seen in the church and she has seen some pretty awesome teachers. We would like to clone her and put her in every church classroom in the Baltic. Good teachers can change the world.

The first to receive her recognition is Sintia (Cynthia) who is a remarkable young woman. She was the one who translated everyone's remarks for us into English...she's 16 years old.

The next seminary age student was Ingus (in-goose)...again, a remarkable and spiritual young man.
Kristina was given a big, bouquet of roses and chrysanthemums for her dedication as a teacher. She is expecting her third child in the next few weeks.

 And these are the students who attended...along with the Branch President and kids.

And then it was time for brownie sundaes!  And guess who Elder & Sister Davis met in Liepaja unexpectedly?  Eva! She was visiting her cousin and came to church.

On the way home, Noemi says, "Are you up to a little sight-seeing on the way back?" 

"What a silly question, of course we are!"

So we head to the beach in Liepaja....

We passed by this statue and Eva said,

"Elders Davis don't you want to get a picture of this?"

Elder Davis: It's just an ugly bear eating honey."

Eva: "No, it is not! This is Winnie-the-Pooh."

Then we walked past this remarkable play area for kids...complete with giant ship, climbing tubes, riding scooters and fun things that our grandchildren would have loved to have seen.

And within 5 minutes we were standing on this very large stretch of Liepaja coast line....

                                            

   The three amiga's....oops! In Latvia...tris draugi

We drove up the coast aways (after a slight detour due to construction) and came to a special place that Noemi called the "surprise".  Only the surprise ended up being on her.

We parked the car and headed up this lovely trail, along with a hoard of mosquito's...... Noemi had been here once before and knew there was some spectacular scenery ahead.

But when we arrived...Surprise! someone had destroyed the wooden steps that led down to the beach and we were stuck on the cliff  overlooking the sand.

 Now, you might not think this is such a remarkable sight but you have to remember that Latvija is a pretty flat country. So this cliff is quite the tourist attraction, and the wooden stairs look like they had rotted, so someone took them out. It was still  a pretty view and reminded Sister Davis of Los Osos, California.



It was such a lovely day, made for us to enjoy the beauty of God's creations.  We are silly when we don't take the time to appreciate how beautiful the world is around us.

Elder & Sister Davis poise for a "cute couple" shot.

There are so many interesting buildings here, you can't help but stop and take pictures.  We hope we never take these sights for granted while we are in Latvia.

And finally, our main destination on the way back to Riga.  Kuldiga (kool-dee-ga) ...a town from another time. It was founded in 1242, alongside the Venta River.  In the 16th century, Kuldiga's castle was one of the residences of  Duke Gothard  Kettler. 

Most of the town managed to escape the numerous wars and fires through the years. You can still find original wooden buildings dating from the 16th and 17th centuries.




It's amazing that buildings are centuries old here....

Kuldiga has the longest brick bridge in Europe at 538 ft. long. It spans the Venta River, and was built in 1874.

The bridge is just down stream from the widest waterfall in Europe.


The Baltic region has so many places to fish and so few people... it's a fisherman's paradise.... Elder Davis' wishes he had brought his fishing pole.

And now you will get to see Europe's widest waterfall....

are you sure you are ready for this?


Don't get too excited...it is wide, but it's the little bittiest waterfall we have ever seen.
This is some tourist attraction...you can barely hear the water falling.

This is the first waterfall that Sister Davis has actually seen people walking across...




It was such a gorgeous day! Notice the two fishermen,  below, who have the river to themselves.

We were told that this is a statue of  "Suitu seivas", Latvian folk singers that have a unique singing style. Later Sister Davis saw a  suitu group singing on YouTube...they have a unique style all right.  The ladies are really just singing/talking loudly while some harmonize by chanting in the background.






Doesn't this seem an idyllic place to live?

Two cannon over looking the widest waterfall in all of Europe? 
It makes sense....
It's not like that waterfall could ever protect the city from it's enemies.

Kodak moment?

It was getting late and we needed to get home to Riga...so we plug in our GPS and she tells us to turn onto an unpaved road..
.

We turned on the road out of Sabile and we noticed a whole lot of people watching us from a yard next to the road. Who were all those people?  Was someone having a BBQ?

Elder Davis slowed way down to take a look...and found the people were actually dummies or maybe dolls. Homemade figures depicting military people, children, teachers, policemen, businessmen, mothers...and if you look closely the quirky lady who made these figures is standing amongst them watching all the people in cars stop to take pictures. We waved at her but we got no response. Can you find her?

Can you see her now?  Middle left, the only figure with a tan face.

Think of all the hours of quirkiness she must have endured to create her family of dolls.

The World is a funny place sometimes!

But as we settled back onto another dirt road,  we wondered.....

 did our GPS really know where we were?

We decided it didn't matter where we were, we were having fun.

This was the neatest old building...

And after thinking we would never get home....we arrived at Jurmala where Eva says, "Stop! I am thirsty!"

Elder Davis pulls over wondering where she is going to get a drink. She takes out an empty water bottle from her backpack...and runs across the street, telling Sister Davis to come too.

Where is Eva going? And what is that nasty smell in the air?

Sister Davis sees a gazebo with what looks like a stone well in the middle of it.....

And downhill a little way is a marble lizard with water coming out of it's mouth

 Eva crouches a few feet away from it holding her bottle up to the lizards mouth, filling it with icy cold water .

"Eva, what are you doing?"

Well, some words are just to hard to translate into English. She didn't know the English word for a sulfur spring. But she said the water is very good for you with vitamins, so she fills her water bottle with this cold, spring water whenever she can.

In the car, she tells Sister Davis to try a sip.
"Okay, but just a sip..."
And then Eva says, " Hold you nose as you drink, it doesn't smell good."

No kidding! It not only stinks, it tastes awful!  Sister Davis can NOT believe she actually tried that water!  But Eva insists it is very healthy and will do her good.

This picture of the cloud studded sky shows how light it is at 8:30 at night.

We drop Noemi off at home. She was happy to have had a break from her two sweet, but active boys all day. We drove Eva home because though it was light out, it was 9:30.  She lives in what we would call a dorm in the USA but here they are called hostels. Hers is a girls only hostel so Elders Davis wasn't allowed in but she really wanted Sister Davis see where she lived.

Wow, we certainly got an education today...

starting with the recognition of some very dedicated saints in Liepaja, then visiting with two very dedicated saints as we traveled unknown roads and ending with two tired but dedicated missionaries with full hearts and educated minds. Life is good in Latvia.