A Bad Beginning...2013

When Sister Davis worked in the library at a California Elementary School, she read a set of books by Lemony Snicket (pen name for Daniel Handler ).  For those who have children, you might know them as A Series of Unfortunate Events. That is how the New Year started for Sister Davis...and it ultimately affected Elder Davis as well.  The first book is entitled The Bad Beginning. 

For us, the first day of 2013 
was a "series of unfortunate events".   

Sister Davis you will remember from her last post was trying to get some sleep on New Years Eve...and wasn't very successful. A little dozing here and there, was all she got. At 7:00 in the morning, it was time to drive Matiss back to Riga...he had a volleyball practice he needed to get home for. 

Most of you have had to go without sleep at some time or another and you probably remember, that when you haven't had any sleep, you get a gritty feeling under your eyelids. Your head feels like it is in a fog.  It actually feels like you are coming down with the flu. Well, senior missionaries are no different. Sister Davis looked and felt like something the cat dragged in.

But missionaries know that they can accomplish anything with prayer and a little faith. Sister Davis dragged herself off the sofa and went to wash her face. Cold water was what she needed.  She worried a little bit about Elder Davis, who had left Vilnius at 2:00 AM with several YSA's. She hated to call him because he was probably sleeping , so she had to trust that everything went well with his trip home.
Sister Davis drove most of the way through Lithuania with three sleeping girls in the back seat and Matiss sleeping in the front passenger seat.  But after 2 1/2 hours of driving, Sister Davis was struggling to keep her eyes open. She pulled over at the nearest Statoil and woke Matiss up..."You need to drive now."

So Matiss took over. He is in the process of getting his drivers license and is actually a pretty good driver. In Latvia, student drivers have a large "M" on their dashboard to show they are still learning and need a qualified driver in the car at all times.  Sister Davis was the qualified driver...and though she wanted to sleep, she could not.

Meanwhile, the other YSA's were still in Vilnius having breakfast.  Some had gotten a little sleep at the church but many had stayed up all night playing games.

They had a busy New Year's Day ahead of them as Brigita had planned a Vilnius sightseeing tour.

Meanwhile, back in the car,  we are having a quiet ride. The roads are clear, there is very little traffic and the girls are still sleeping in the back seat. And then we enter the town of Bauska, Latvia. Matiss is talking to Sister Davis and as we head up a hill in town, we notice a police officer at the side of the road with his radar gun pointed at us.  He uses his wand and indicates to Matiss to pull over.  

It seems the speed limit is 50 kilometers per hour in Bauska and the policija said he was going 69kph. Visibly upset, Matiss had to give his drivers license and registration to the officer. He then told  Sister Davis she needed to give her license also.  The officer stared at Sister Davis's Idaho drivers license and he couldn't figure it out. He didn't understand English and her license says it is a class "A" license. In Latvia, a class "A" license means you can drive motorcycles only.  He asked Matiss, why it wasn't translated into Latvian. Matiss then tells Sister Davis. Sister Davis says in perfect English, it doesn't have to be...she read the European Union drivers criteria that says your American drivers license is good in any European Union country. 

Meanwhile, Matiss is telling the officer that he wasn't going 69kph (though he was going 59kph). The officer says something in Latvian...which Matiss translates for Sister Davis. 

Matiss:  "He wants to give you a ticket." 

Sister Davis:  "WHAT? He wants to give ME a ticket! I'm not the one driving!"

Matiss:  "But you are the one responsible for me."

Sister Davis (in a rather high agitated voice): "I have been driving for 39 years and NEVER gotten a ticket! I don't deserve a ticket especially in Latvia when I'm not even driving the car!" 

The officer doesn't have a clue what Sister Davis just said, but he could hear her piercing voice and he gets a  a disgusted look on his face. He says something in Latvian and Matiss tells Sister Davis, "He just says to go and not speed again."

Shaken but vindicated Sister Davis says, "Matiss you handled that very well."

Matiss pulls back on the road and drives slowly away...and stays at a snails pace for the rest of the trip. He has learned his lesson....but we soon enter Riga city limits and what do we see? 

 Again, Latvian policija... a whole bunch of them at a sobriety check point.  They all had wands and were pulling over several cars at a time. Of course, the giant "M" in our windshield is a red flag for a police officer so we get waved over. Out comes Sister Davis's class "A" drivers license. The officer looks at both licenses and the car registration and comes around the car to Sister Davis's side and knocks on the window.

NOW WHAT?!

The officer says something in Latvian to her and  holds out a small tube attached to a box. Okay, now things are getting freaky for Sister Davis. He wants her to take a breathalyzer test and she isn't even driving! So Sister Davis blows into this tube, hoping that it isn't the same tube every other driver has blown into.  Matiss tells her she isn't blowing hard enough and she has to try again.  She makes some snotty remark, thankful the officer doesn't understand English, and tries again.  I mean really, how long do you have to blow into the tube for the machine to know if you are drunk or not?  Finally the officer, looking as disgusted as the first officer did, waves his wand at us to leave not even looking to see if the breathalyzer had registered alcohol or not.

Well, Sister Davis is feeling really put out by the Latvian police today and what does she hear Matiss say to her?

"Sister Davis I am never going to drive with you again!"

Say what?! Like it's her fault he was speeding and we ran into a sobriety check point?  How unfair!

We made it safely to his home and Elder Davis who was as rested and refreshed as you can be after just 3 hours of sleep,  picked up Sister Davis and took her home where she promptly fell asleep on her uncomfortable bed. Nightmares of Latvian jail cells running through her head.

Meanwhile, back in Vilnius, the other nine YSA's were nearly done with sightseeing. Elder Davis tells them, the rental van needs to be back at 7 PM or we get charged for another day. They promise to be on the road by 2:00.  But at 2:30, Elder Davis calls again and finds out they aren't quite on the road yet. It seems they have had a few problems with the van. It wouldn't start and they ended up pushing it to "jump start" the engine.

Luckily, the five, strong young men got the engine started and they quickly got in and headed back to Riga.

Meanwhile,  Sister Davis has woken up after a four hour nap.  Elder Davis is watching television and waiting for the call to pick up the YSA's from the car rental place.  He is worried there won't be enough time to drop the majority of them at the church. We can't carry all nine people in our little Opel. 

So at 6:30PM,  Elder Davis calls Dainis (the most mature of the group)  to see where they were. Dainis hesitates with his answer before saying.... 

"Elder Davis we have some bad news."

It seems that an  hour out of Vilnius the van had broken down for good.  They had known something was leaking from under the van but didn't know what it was.  It was gasoline. But the gas gauge didn't register they were losing fuel so they thought they had plenty. They ran out of gas, the heater was still going and wouldn't shut off, and they were stuck about an hours walk from the nearest Statoil station. And no one stopped to help. 

The kids were smart enough to call the car rental place who promised to send another van to pick them up, but it would take 4 hours to get to them. The YSA's sat in the car singing and praying that everything would turn out alright. They were especially worried about Elder Davis's 200L deposit. Their prayers included him getting his money back but they didn't have much hope for it.  In Latvia, there is no such thing as customer rights.

As the day turned into night (it still gets dark early), the battery died and the heater went off. The temperature dropped quickly in the van. And remember there were no restrooms close by... only fields.

What a way to start a New Year!

The replacement van showed up around 8:30PM  with a trailer attached to pull the broken van back to Riga. It took another 4 1/2 hours for the YSA's to get dropped off at the church. Elder Davis got a call at 1 AM to take some of the YSA's who lived outside of Riga home because the buses were no longer running. Elder Davis got home at 2:30AM. And he was worried about getting his deposit back. The company was going to be looking over the van to see who was responsible for the damage.

The next afternoon, he headed to the car rental place to see what they had decided. And the prayers of the YSA's had been answered. The company admitted it was all their fault and Elder Davis got his whole deposit back.

We are proud of the Latvian YSA's for their faith and dedication.  No one complained about what happened, they looked at it like a great adventure. They said, they had a good time in the van singing and talking about how great the party had been the night before. Adversity doesn't seem to faze them here because they come from a people who have dealt with adversity for ages. As Dainis always tells us,  "It's okay Sister, Latvians are tough."

So what did we learn from our first day of 2013?

Trials make you stronger.

Sleep is necessary for a happy temperament.

Latvian police work extra hard on holidays.

Latvians are tough, courageous and faithful.

Elder Davis is a worrier...well, actually we knew that one from before.  
                                         He comes from a long line of worriers.

Apostle Orson F. Whitney (1855–1931) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, explained: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire.” 

<sup>In case you think we just got off to a bad start for  2013... it hasn't gotten much better. 


On day two, the  washing machine in our apartment broke and we ended up washing our clothes in the shower for a week. Loads of fun.

Then we got a call that one of our grand daughters had a seizure and was put in the hospital.  After many prayers on her behalf she is home but doctors haven't really found the problem.</sup> 

2013 we aren't sure if you are a friend or a foe but we know one thing... 
with faith and prayer we are up to the challenge of another year!