Singing in the Snow!

Last year at Christmas time, Elder and Sister Davis introduced the art of Christmas Caroling to the YSA's in Riga, Latvia.  It was such a hit, we decided it needed to become a "tradition" for FHE. There was no grumbling this year from any of the YSA's and more enthusiasm for "singing to strangers". In fact, Aivars had to work late, but he was determined to find us where ever we were singing when he got off work.

We met at the church at 6:30 for some pizza.  Olga, the Student Council president, had 5 names of people who lived in downtown Riga to visit.  Sister Davis had made five plates of cookies and Zane had two Latvian Christmas songs printed for all the carolers to sing from.

And then it started snowing...

.

Roman, Zane, Iveta (the new member), Juris (kneeling), Dimitrijs, Elder Davis & Olga

It was a cool 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside but that wouldn't deter us from our caroling duties. We walked 6 blocks in the falling snow, cracked the code to get into the building, climbed 4 flights of stairs (honestly, why isn't Sister Davis losing weight on her mission?), and stopped outside a door.

We knocked and waited....and waited...and Sister Davis suggested to the carolers to just start singing and someone will open the door. But we started singing and still no one , opens the door. Finally, Juris pounds on the door with his fist and it opens, a young mother with her baby girl answered the door.

We started singing and that sweet baby girl, puckered up her face and started crying! Not a very auspicious way to start our evening of caroling. We don't really think we sounded that bad.

 We left a plate of cookies and warm Christmas wishes and headed down 4 flights of stairs and out into the cold snowy night.

The carolers walked 7 blocks back in the direction in which we had come (walking in the snow, slows you down some) and we finally find #77 Valdemara St. Olga had the code written down, so she punches in the number. Beeeeeeeep! That means it didn't work. She tried again and had no luck. Of course, every boy in the group had to try that same number...thinking they would be able to unlock the door but no one was able crack the code.

Hmmmm! Now what? Someone was smart enough to say lets try the back of the building.   Sure enough, there was another code box in the back of the building. Tried the code again....BEEEEEEEEEP! 

Nope, that one didn't work either. Now lest you think this is something unusual, it is not. There are always snafu's in every activity we try....but it was cold outside and dark and it was getting later by the minute. We needed to find out how to get into that building. Then Sister Davis notices a building behind the one we were trying to get into...it was also, #77. As we walked around to the front of it (which was on different street than Valdemara), we found another punch code box.

This time the code worked!  We got in and headed to the stairs...the mailboxes were numbered 22-33. We were looking for apartment #66...that was not a good sign. 

Three YSA's took the rickety elevator (it looked like those cage ones they use on construction sites) up to the third floor...and discovered there was no apartment #66. So we all troop outside and discover....are you waiting for this?.....there is ANOTHER building #77 next door to this one!

That makes three separate buildings, all with the same number on two different streets.

Sister Davis would really like to interview the Riga City Planner, what was he thinking?

We get into building #77 the third, and low and behold, there is an apartment #66.

We troop up three flights of stairs...

 and get ready to knock on the door of an older, less active member of the church.

And just before we start singing, who comes tromping up the stairway, but Aivars.  How could he possibly have found us, when we couldn't even find the right building?  It seems Zane had been texting him and he found us easily. Now we are ready to sing!
The door opens and Zane asks the lady if we could sing a few Christmas songs...

... we don't know what she said, but we do know the kids started singing Silent Night in Latvian and, after that, Joy to the World. The woman was so touched, she just kept saying, "Paldies" (thank you) over and over. We gave her a plate of cookies and Zane invited her to the branch Christmas Party on Saturday.

Everyone was touched by the spirit they felt doing this small act of service to this sweet sister. By now it is 8:45 and Sister Davis said, that was our last one. Aivars wanted to keep going, after all he had just joined us for the fun. We still had three plates of cookies to give out but Sister Davis was concerned about the time. Most older people don't want to be disturbed after 9:00PM and we would have to walk many more blocks to get to the next person on our list. Caroling is way harder in Latvia than it was back "home".

We all came to the decision, we would head back down Valdemara St. and go to the doughnut shop and sing to the employees, give them cookies and we would buy doughnuts and sit and talk. Another four blocks of walking, we discovered the doughnut shop closed at 8PM. Now what?  Sister Davis suggests to Aivars, find someone on the street we can sing to and we will give the cookies to them. She then pats him on the back and says, "Aivars let the Spirit guide you to find someone."

Well, we walked another block without Aivars stopping to sing to anyone. He just kept walking, with all of us following along, ignoring those other pedestrians we could have sung to. Mind you, it is still snowing and quite cold outside but the spirits of the YSA's were warm and enthusiastic.  It was really a party atmosphere in our group.
We walked all the way to the park at the end of the street...and we kept asking Aivars, "How about this person coming towards us?"   None of them seemed the right sort to sing to.
Finally, we end up near the large Russian Orthodox church near Old Town.  

Two young girls came along and Elder Davis tried to give them cookies while asking if we could sing to them...he barely finished his question, when the girls squealed and took off running at a high rate of speed!  It was so funny....several YSA's joked that those girls couldn't get away from Elder Davis fast enough and that maybe he needed to practice his "delivery" a little better.  Then we realized why the girls took off running so fast...they had looked up and noticed their bus just arriving at the bus stop several yards away and they were running to catch it before it left!

Another young man was spotted coming down the sidewalk and Elder Davis was determined to give his cookies away and sing to someone so he could get out of the snow and go home.
Dimitrijs beat him to it. He asked the young man if we could just have three minutes of his time. At first this young man wasn't sure of what we were doing. Elder Davis said, "We have cookies to give you". The young man said, "No, I don't want any cookies."  We insisted and he took them reluctantly.
Our intrepid carolers gathered together and sang in English, We wish you a Merry Christmas.  By the time we were done singing the song, the young man had joined in. He sang right along with us in English and got a BIG smile on his face. He thanked us and set off still smiling with cookies in hand. Elder Davis then turned to the carolers and said, "Now that we have shown you how to do it, take the rest of the cookies and go find someone else to sing to...Sister Davis and I are going home".  
And we headed through the park towards home.

The rest of the story....
About 40 minutes later,  while sitting in our front room, we got a call  from Olga. She said the Russian Elders had just called her and told her a story she wanted to share with us. Elder McCaffree and Elder Christensen had the name and phone number of a young man that had met with other missionaries before and they had  tried calling him several times and never been successful getting a hold of him.  Tonight that young man called them and said he wanted to set up an appointment to meet with them.

He told them he was on his way home that evening and he was surprised when some people from their church stopped and sang "We wish you a Merry Christmas" to him and gave his some cookies. He had seen Elder Davis's name tag and knew we were from the same church as the missionaries he had once talked with. Elder McCaffree said the young man kept saying to him, "It made me so happy! I just feel so happy."

There are about 700,000 people in Riga, Latvia and few of them have ever met with Mormon missionaries. What are the chances that the young man we sang to on the street, would be one of those few who HAD met with missionaries before?  AND what are the chances of that young man calling the Elders that night, excited to meet with them?

We say the chances were actually quite good when you have the Savior on your side!

Now, if you want to say it was all just a coincidence...we will say to you:  "Where is your faith?"