We are Clay in His Hands

"O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter,                                                         and we all are the work of thy hand.                                                                                                        Isaiah 64:8 

Many years ago, Sister Davis took a pottery class and learned the basics of "throwing a pot"; only the clay on the wheel seldom did what  Sister Davis wanted it to do. Molding and shaping the clay all depended on the pressure of her hands and fingers. She made some very strange pieces of artwork in that class but she  loved creating things from clay.

And that is why it is so interesting that Sister Davis often feels she is being "molded" into something more than what she was before serving this mission.  She has grown in so many ways that it is easy to see the Lord's hand in her life.   Each of us is being molded and shaped by the experiences we go through each day in this mortal realm and we need to take a moment to focus on how far we have come and what we want to become before we leave this life.

We are clay in His hands,  

Centered on the wheel

As the wheel spins, the potter molds,

creating something beautiful

We are clay in His hands

All we can become

Is shaped by the master,

That's where his finest work is done 

                                                                                                                                   song lyrics by Jenny Jordan Frogley

Today's post will spotlight some of the people in Latvia who are being molded and shaped by the "potters hands" just like we are.  Elina  has been a member for a little less than a year and, you will see in the photo below, she is has grown in her knowledge of the Bible so much that she was asked to substitute teach the New Testament Institute class.  

We love to see the YSA's make Institute a priority in their lives; the lessons they learn help shape their testimonies of the Savior...11 show up for the Latvian class and 5 for the Russian class. Four of the YSA's below have been members less than a year.

Elina I., Elza, Haralds, Juris, Iveta, Ingus, Marta, Aivars, Kristine, Diana, Elina K.

Every new baptism brings people into the Church of Jesus Christ who make sacrifices and covenants to change their old life for a new one.   
They are like new clay, "centered on the wheel". 

Julia's decision to be baptized was a made a little easier because her brother Romans is a member of the church already. 

He was so excited when his sister said she wanted to be baptized, too! 
It is rare in the Baltic for any of the YSA's to have family members join the church.
What a happy day for both of them.  It is so much easier to live the life Christ wants you to when you have family to help you on your journey. It takes a lot of effort to stay true to your faith.

Elder Morgan and Elder Mickelson were Julia's missionaries.

But our Lord, our Father,
We are the clay, He is the Potter
We are the work of His hand

Julia is welcomed by a member of her branch presidency.

And Romans just can't keep from smiling.

When Elder & Sister Davis walked outside into the frigid air, we saw something else that had been created...an upside down icicle. It looked like someone had broken this wand of ice off the eaves and created their own ice sculpture on the porch of the church.

Elder & Sister Davis are pleased to introduce you to someone else about to be molded in new ways.  The newest senior missionary couple serving in Latvia are Elder & Sister Ballstaedt  Sister Ballstaedt has been called as the mission nurse and will be helping E/S Adams in the mission office. They are adjusting very nicely to Riga and are great fun to be with, we are so happy they decided to serve in the Baltic Mission. Welcome! 

We see Church members all the time in Latvia who feel that the Potter is hard at work helping them become better people. We are indeed "clay in his hands" as we follow the teachings of Jesus Christ..

We are clay in His hands
All we can become
Is shaped by the master,
It's where his finest work is done 

A Winter Wonderland

Riga has turned into a winter wonderland! It's cold, about 10 degrees F (-12C) during the day, with snow on the ground and some snowfall off and on.  We stay in our apartment more but sometimes we hate hibernating and have to get out and see the world. This post will show you what we have seen in the month of January.

Two way traffic streets become one way traffic streets...wait your turn.

Lidos decked out in Holiday fashion.

A rare bit of sunlight that day! 

A quick sunset...nothing new there.

Walking to the grocery store because our car....

...looks like this and it isn't always worth the effort of digging out.

Holiday decorations still up....

Ping pong balls falling from the sky...

Not really, just snowflakes in our camera's flash.

Latvian folk tales....

Live Christmas trees..

Rabbit village....

The village was quite large, with trees,  little buildings and straw scattered on the ground.  The little houses had warming lights and straw in them when the rabbits got tired of being outside, but they seemed to be enjoying the falling snow that night.  This picture has four bunnies in it, we didn't count all the rabbits in the village but there were at least 30.

How do you catch a unique rabbit? 

 Unique up on it! 

 What do you call 99 rabbits stepping backwards? 

A receding hare line 

Where do rabbits work? 

At IHOP restaurants! 

Why did the bunny build herself a new house? 

 She was fed up with the hole thing! 

One day we woke up to sunshine and had to take a drive into the winter wonderland....

And caught the sun going down about 3:00PM...

Winter is wonderful!

Basket Night

When Elder and Sister Davis instituted "potluck" family home evenings, the YSA's didn't know what we were talking about. When the word was explained to them, they told us they had something similar in Latvia. Well, we found out their word translates into "basket night".
Basket night means you bring something in a basket to add to the table.

At Break-the-fast we only had 17 show up... and it was lasagna night, so for the first time, in a long time, Elder & Sister Davis had leftovers!
It was nice to have less than 20 for dinner. Dainis and Eva are married and now attend young married activities. Dimitrijs D. has a girlfriend and doesn't come very often (keep your fingers crossed that something comes of that relationship). We have several new YSA members but a few of our regulars have jobs (that is a good thing) and can't be at all the activities.  So our numbers change and so does our wall of pictures. At our first FHE of the year, we had 22 young people but 7 of those were missionaries..and it was BASKET NIGHT!

So our potluck/basket night buffet included...chips, oranges, bread, cookies, pretzel sticks, onion rings (Sister Davis's contribution), candy, carrots, dip and nuts. Quite the spread.

We had 4 investigators, which is why we had so many missionaries in attendance.  They like to make their investigators feel at home, so the missionaries walk them to our apartment and leave after the lesson is over.  By then the investigators usually feel comfortable enough to stay and play games.

The majority of the group started a game of UNO....a favorite card game. Ingus, on the left,  is a fascinating young man who is investigating the church. He has studied far eastern religions and East Indian religions. He is a vegetarian because he takes the commandment "thou shalt not kill" very seriously. He loves to get into gospel discussions with Elder Davis and stays after FHE for an hour or more. We really like him and his knowledge is amazing.

Agneta is hiding behind her cards because she had gone tanning and was a little sunburned...

There are a lot of  young people who go to  tanning salons here...we think it is because they crave sunshine and the sun is so fleeting, tanning  probably helps their emotional well being.

Why is Lauris smiling in the photo below? 

He has a huge number of cards in his hand...he must have tricked someone else into getting more cards. 

Family Home Evening gives us purpose on our mission.  We love to open up our "home" to these faithful and lovable young people and listen to their problems, share their successes and give them a listening ear that they need so badly. This is where the investigators come to socialize and discover that Mormons are pretty "normal" people.

Okay, lest you think that Dimitrijs isn't being normal...he is doing the same thing many other boys his age do when someone says, "let me take your picture".  Romans is not the type of make faces for the camera, he plans on going on a mission this summer.

Can you believe Dimitrijs P. is engaged?  

He and Marina have set the wedding day for April 27th...just before Elder and Sister Davis come home. Looks like we will be busy up until the very end of our mission!

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!