On the way Back from Daugavpils....

After a day in Daugavpils, it was time to make our way back to Riga....after all, it was Monday and we had Family Home Evening at 7:00 PM. Elder Davis was driving, Sister Davis was navigating and Elder & Sister Adams were in the back seat of our little black car.  About 10 km out of  the city, something out the window, caught Sister Davis's eye. 

 

 "Hmmmm....what was that we just passed? Let's go back to find out."

 

Elder Davis dutifully turns the car around and we park off the road to see what it was that caught Sister Davis's eye.  A memorial stone!  This marker faces the main road but there are no other signs telling you it is here.

 

 

Notice the rocks left on the base of the memorial.  We would have gotten back in our car and left but Elder Davis said, "What's that in the forest?"

 

And we noticed a small arrow attached to a tree pointing into the woods.

 

We walked a little ways down a path amongst the trees and saw grave stones....we wondered, "Who is buried here?"   And as we read the engraving on the stones we realized this was a little-known  memorial for Holocaust victims. This place wasn't on any map or in our research book.  Each head stone has a country name on it with the  number of  Jews that were killed from there during the Holocaust.

 

 

 

 



 

This was an amazing memorial!

 

 

 

Belarus....1,252,000

 

 

 

Estonia. Latvian, & Lithuania....

 

Poland....

 



 

 Daugavpils has it's own small stone....

 

 

 

And the farthest one was this big Star of David stone with fresh flowers at the foot of it.

 

Wow, that was a surprise and we were amazed  to see "the bigger picture" of the Holocaust. What else will four senior missionaries "discover" on the way home?

Well, here's one thing we discover out in the middle of nowhere.....

 

Why are all the church's here so beautiful?!

 

Flower trees.....

And then we went into the city of Jekabpils, hoping to find an old castle that was there.  We ended up lost in the city where every street was undergoing construction and had detours.  Our GPS couldn't recalculate fast enough and then we saw one of those brown "historic interest" signs and we had to stop and find out what is was.  In the middle of a park, we found this obelisk.  Huh?  Can you guess what it is?

Sister Davis didn't have a clue what it was either!  She will try to explain this object but  you may need to research this on your own or stay totally ignorant (it doesn't really matter does it?) 

 

The sign next to this obelisk says it is an instrument that helps measure the size of  the earth. 

The earth is a pretty big object so astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Struve decided to make a chain of survey triangulations stretching from Hammerfest, Norway to the Black Sea, through 10 countries and over 2,820 km.  These measuring devices make up "The Struve Arc".  Struve, who was working at the Dorpat University in Estonia, put the first triangulation point used to measure a line of longitude (meridian) in the observatory of the university.

 

Latvia has two of these points and the one in Jekabpils was put in place in 1826.  These points led to the first accurate measuring of a long segment of longitude and helped to establish the exact size and shape of the planet and marked an important step in  topographic mapping.

And as we left Struve Park we noticed this sign on the road...Whoa! A car falling into a river sign...you don't see those every day.

 

Elder & Sister Davis want to show you how Latvians love their gardens. People in the city have small summer houses (often the size of a shack) with gardens next to them. Summer gardens are planted with fruit trees, vegetables and flowers and everywhere we travel we see them; well organized and maintained.  Latvians not only love digging in the dirt, they can be found hunting for mushrooms in every forest and picking berries.

The countryside is always green in the summer because we have had rain every week...not a lot, just a few showers here and there. Perfect for keeping your country watered and your plants green.

 

Finally, we find our way out of Jekabpils and decide to try and find another historic site.

 

And it didn't take us long to find Koknese Castle.

Or more like Koknese Castle Ruins.

 

Elder & Sister Davis taking a break in the beautiful park outside the castle.

Elder & Sister Adams were glad to get out of the car and stretch their legs also.

 

This is one place we had to actually pay to get into ( less than $3).  Imagine that! Paying to see an ancient castle...something we would automatically assume we would have to do in the United States.  Here, ancient ruins are everywhere and we keep telling the Latvians you need to market your historical sites better and get some tours going! You could turn your whole economy around with all the castles you have here!

 

 

Koknese was built at the confluence of two rivers by the Livs in the 13th century .  It was built to defend the area from invaders but didn't seem to be very effective since Poland was the first to take over, then the Russians under Ivan the Terrible.  

 

After the Polish came back and blew up the castle in 1701, the ruins were left alone and now the castle is advertised to the public as "romantic ruins".

 

 

 

 

 

Isn't it amazing that these dolomite walls are still standing after such a long time?

 

Sister Davis and Sister Adams really had to stretch to get this photo.  We literally crawled to get through this opening to see what was on the other side.  The view was worth it.

 

 

Ahhh,  romantic Church ruins!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elder Davis scoping out the best fishing spots while Sister Davis gets into the spirit of the "romantic ruins".

 

 

It was such a peaceful, beautiful summer day, we hated to go back to the big city. Sister Davis misses being out in nature, planting a garden and picking flowers. But she knows that she will be back home soon....

 

 

And so we surrender ourselves.....

 

 ...to being the best missionaries we can for the next 8 months.

We want to end our mission as strong as when we started it!