Cruisin' thru Kaunas

We put our little car in gear and headed to Kaunas (ko-nus), the second largest city in Lithuania, with about 415,000 people.  We needed to make contact with Elder & Sister Watt who had just arrived there and had been called as Seminary teachers. Now, we believe in modern day miracles but trying to teach a New Testament class when  you don't speak the language might create a few problems...  Antti was the one who said, "Maybe you could go talk to them?"

That was all the excuse Elder Davis needed for a road trip and now we were nearly there!

The roads in Lithuania are very good...one of the few  four lane highways in the Baltic where the speed is 130 km, runs through the country. See? You can pass without having to force someone onto the shoulder. What a treat to drive on a four-lane!

It was a beautiful day and we drove with our windows down enjoying the sun and blue sky. We couldn't pass up a photo stop when we say this darling old brick church.

But all good things must end....and soon we arrived in Kaunas, where potholes are as big as a large dog. No kidding, the biggest potholes we have ever seen were in Kaunas!

And Elder Davis kept jerking the steering wheel to avoid one after the other in the middle of our lanes. We figured we could break an axle if we hit one of those holes wrong. So with great care we drove  to our hotel to check in.

We then went to Elder & Sister Watt's apartment on the other side of town and delivered the Mission Mail to the young missionaries.  All missionary mail comes to the Baltic Mission office in Riga. Whenever anyone is going to another destination in the mission, they are supposed to take the mail that is waiting in the office to be delivered. We were very popular delivering the letters from home to the young Sisters and Elders.

After promising to meet the Watt's the next morning, Elder and Sister Davis headed back to downtown Kaunas, swerving around potholes the whole way back.

Kaunas is a really lovely  town surrounded by forested hills. It was built where two major rivers meet and thus it is hard to navigate easily through town. There are one way streets and dead ends everywhere.  We couldn't have made it without our GPS. 

Kaunas has been invaded by Russia (1655), Sweden (1701) and  Napoleon's Grand Army (1812). The city has also suffered under Nazi and Soviet occupations yet there is a historic charm to the city that led us to want to explore it.

Kaunas had 30,000 Jews at the time of the German invasion of 1941.  They were herded into a ghetto area of Kaunas and most all perished in the camps at Auschwitz, Dachau and Stutthof. The Choral Synagogue has a memorial to the 50,000 Lithuanian Jewish children killed during the Holocaust. The guide book says the altar is one of the most beautiful in the Jewish world but we weren't able to get inside.  Too bad.

Sometimes a map works better than an GPS because we  know where we want to go but don't have an address.  This time we wanted to go through "Old Town".....

And we didn't have time to go to the Kaunas Castle...but we did a get a picture from the parking lot.

And then, across the river we drove to a steep hill, where the Watt's told us was an excellent view of the city.  The funicular wasn't working so we drove to the top.

In case you didn't know, a funicular is a cable car that goes up a steep slope.

The view was great....

Kaunas is a big place!

Our next stop is Napoleon's Hill...

From this tiny but steep hill, Napoleon allegedly watched his Grand Army of 690,000 troops cross the river into Russia at the start of his attack on the Russian Empire in 1812.  Our car, at then end of the path gives you some perspective of how steep it is.

And this is the view that Napoleon had...if he really was on this hill!.

After all that climbing, two senior missionaries were tired.  We had more exploring to do with the Watts the next day and we needed our....

beauty sleep!



A Hill of Crosses...

Elder & Sister Davis were on their way to visit the newest Baltic missionary couple, the Watts, in Kaunas, Lithuania, when Sister Davis fell asleep in the car. In her defense, she didn't sleep well the night before and was tired.  Since she is the trip navigator, you might think that Elder Davis got lost...but he didn't. 

He did know there was one place he wanted to visit,  close to Šiauliai, Lithuania,  and he couldn't find it.  When he realized he must have passed the road he needed to take,  he woke Sister Davis up and said, "I missed it somehow."
Sister Davis (groggily): Huh? What did we miss?"
Elder Davis (looking for a place to pull over):  "The Hill of Crosses".
Sister Davis (sitting up):   "The Hill of Crosses!   Holy Moly...We've got to see that!"

A look at the map showed, we had indeed, passed the road we needed....but how far back it was, we weren't sure.
Sister Davis looks closely at the map and we head back the way we came.   We found the turn off but Elder Davis would have missed it again if Sister Davis hadn't said,  "This is it!"

It isn't any wonder Elder Davis missed the road the first time.  On a rather small brown sign with the symbol at left, was written  Kryžių kalnas.  We had no idea what that meant.

And we found what we were looking for, Hill of Crosses.

You are probably wondering why two Mormon missionaries would want to visit a place full of crosses.  Crosses are icons you just don't see in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You won't see a cross anywhere on or in a Mormon chapel. You definitely won't see one on a Mormon Temple and you don't usually see our members wearing jewelry with crosses.  It's not that we aren't Christian, it's that we Mormons don't like to use an emblem of death to remind us of our beloved Savior.

The official church statement is,  "The cross is used in many Christian churches as a symbol of the Savior's death and Resurrection and as a sincere expression of faith. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we also remember with reverence the suffering of the Savior. But because the Savior lives, we do not use the symbol of His death as the symbol of our faith."

We are told to express our love for the Savior by our day-to-day actions. Do we act in a Christ-like way? That is how we honor Him.

But we Latter-day Saints understand the deep symbolic meaning the Cross has for Christians all over the world and we respect their right to display and honor it.

The Hill of Crosses has become a big tourist attraction, especially for those of the Catholic faith.  This small hill is covered with crosses, crucifixes and rosaries and shows the prominence of Catholicism in Lithuania.
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Crosses first started appearing on this small hill after an uprising against ruling Russia in 1831.
By 1914, over 200 crosses stood on the hill and when the Soviets came in to occupy Lithuania, the athiest regime decided  to get rid of them. 

They hacked down the crosses in 1961, but crosses kept reappearing on the site. In 1973, he Soviets bulldozed the crosses into the ground and again people secretly put more crosses up. 

In 1975, not only were the crosses bulldozed off the hill, sewage was scattered on top of the hill to discourage people from coming back.  Ewwwww!

It is funny how hard anti-religious groups will try to stop religious people from exercising their faith.  And, of course, all those things just made people more determined to show their faith and crosses once again showed up on the hill. The Soviets finally decided to leave it alone, it was getting more well known everytime they tried to stop it!

In 1993, afer Lithuania declared it's independence, Pope John Paul II came to visit the Hill of Crosses. And of course a large cross was put up in his honor along with a granite memorial.

Many tourists that come to visit the site buy a wooden cross at a nearby gift shop and leave them hanging where ever they find room....off of big crosses hang medium crosses and on medium crosses hang little crosses. 

As you start walking from the road to the hill, the crosses are in some semblance of order along the pathway....

But as you get closer to the main entrance, the crosses are place haphazardly anywhere space is available. It is overwhelming to the eye. You can't possibly see all the crosses.

Someone needs to reorganize this place and make it more appealing to visit.  We were just overwhlemed by the mass of wooden and metal crosses and felt a need to move on. It doesn't feel like a place you can meditate in.

A Statue of Christ welcomes everyone at the main entrance....




The stairs allow you to climb right through the gauntlet of crosses...

The most interesting part was when you could actually see some symbol amongst all the "mess".
Like the "All Seeing Eye of God"....

Or seeing this magnficent carving of Christ and wondering how old it is....



An angel or saint?  We weren't sure, but we had to admire the skill of the carver and the love put into the work.

The exact number of crosses is unknown, but estimates put it at about 100,000 in 2006, and that was 6 years ago!

Is this place a shrine or just an "oddity"?  That is for each visitor to decide, but there is no doubt about it....this is one unique place to visit in Lithuania!

  And now that we have visited this well-known tourist site....

 we can "Cross" it off our list of places to see!

That's a Bunch of Crock!

There is no bunch of crock at Institute! We are having a good turnout even though it's summer and lots of people go to the country. The ping-pong table was set up (in the chapel) and ready for action.  With Noemi and Roberta in attendance (both ping-pong devotees) we knew we were in for some interesting games.  And Elder Davis did not want to be left out. His competitive juices kicked in and the Olympic ping-pong championships started a week early....in Riga, Latvia.


First to win the "around the world"- Aivars & Noemi....Avairs won.

The object of the game is to hit he ball and move around to the other side of the table and hit it again when it is your turn.  Two misses and you are out of the game. The last two people at the table play a game of three points.  Then everyone gets back up....
....and around they go again....who will win this time?

Elder Davis is a missionary...and Sister Davis assumes he will play nicely and let others win...but no!  He tries to win every game!  And he says his brother Jason is the most competitive person he's ever met.  Here is Elder Davis playing against Roberta.  Can you guess who won that game?

Hint:  It wasn't Roberta.

Here is Elder Davis playing against Avairs, who is a whole lot younger and a very good ping-pong player....guess who won?

Elder Davis!

Aivars had been winning most of the night so victory was sweet when Elder Davis finally beat him!

Aivars enjoys the competition  and they are still friends....

Institute nights are always fun....we get to know the YSa's better and they have fun being together as friends.   And that isn't a bunch of crock!