The House of the Lord

Wednesday morning dawned bright and clear. One look out our guest house bedroom showed us that indeed it was Latvian week at the temple.  That is the Latvian flag flying next to Sweden's.

The staff at the temple change the flag depending on what country is visiting that week. 

On the left in the photo, is the temple presidents residence and on the right is the back of the Family History Center.

The Stockholm Sweden Temple was dedicated July 4, 1985 by Gordon B. Hinckley and was the first temple in Scandinavia.  There is a plaque on the temple grounds that memorializes a rather special occasion for the church. In 1995, President Thomas S. Monson welcomed  King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia to the temple grounds and for the first time many Swedish people learned about the temple in Västerhaninge. 






We got up early and found a few YSA's already eating cereal. The rest straggled in by 9:00. 

Photo opportunity before we enter the House of the Lord: 

L-R:  Nikolas, Marta, Elder Davis, Sister Davis, Eva, Agneta, Iveta,  Elina,  Julia & Romans 

 The YSA's spent the day doing baptismal work at the temple.  Maksims had invited everyone to attend Institute class in Stockholm Wednesday night and the YSA's were eager to go.  However, there was the little matter of 10 more train tickets to buy.  But Elder Davis knew this would be a golden opportunity for the new converts to see how big the church was in Sweden. There are over 9,000 members in Sweden and they average 50 YSA's at their Institute on Wednesday nights. 
While Sister Davis stayed to do temple work with Eva, Elder Davis took the kids to Stockholm.  He later said, because they were late,  he had to actually run to get train tickets purchased before it arrived at the station. It seems Swedish trains don't wait for tardy passengers.  He said he was exhausted when he finally landed in a seat on  the train. 
The YSA's don't look too rushed in  the photo....Iveta is taking pictures while Elder Davis is buying tickets....

 
In Stockholm, the group walked 15 minutes to get to the Institute Outreach Center. Soup was served and then class started. The Latvian kids loved it. The teacher was lively and knowledgeable. 
And afterwards, there was ping-pong, Foosball, guitars and bongo drums to play....way different than Institute in Latvia, but something to aspire to.


 

 
This is the CES missionary couple assigned to Stockholm. They do as much cooking as Sister Davis does, bless their hearts.

The YSA's came back to the guest house excited and stayed up late playing the card game Uno.  The next day was the temple ceremony for Dainis and Eva.  After this very sacred (and for Elder and Sister Davis, emotional) ceremony, we took pictures of everyone dressed in white in the temple foyer. It is a Latvian tradition to take a picture of the whole group in the temple and tack it to the church bulletin board when they get home.

L-R:  Janis, Aivars, Maskims, Velta, Simona, Linieta, Noemi

Eva, Maksims, Dainis, Elder Davis, Simona, Linieta, Henrijs Spalvens, Elder Senkans, Sister Spalvens

Sunlight was streaming through the windows making for poor photo lighting but...everyone appreciated it's warmth and it was as if Heavenly Father was smiling down on this special occasion for the Latvian saints.

 Congratulations Eva and Dainis now you can be together for eternity. 

 President Spalvens and his wife came all the way from Daugavpils, Latvia. He has been the branch president there since 2005...8 years shows his dedication to the Lord. Elder and Sister Davis know him to be warm and loving to his branch members. 

 Noemi and Martins were there with Adams...Jazeps was happily left with grandpa Birkenfeld.

The Latvian District Temple Trip,  March 2013

Front, L-R: Julia, Noemi , Sister Davis, Dainis, Eva, Elder Davis, Romans
Middle:  Agneta, Martins w/ Adams, Nikolas, Marta, Velta, Velga, Janis w/Sebastion, Lina, Sister Spalvens
Back:  Janis, Simona, Maksims, Elder Senkans, Aivars, Pres. Spalvens, Elina

And here we are with the guests of honor (below).  

Right after this photo we went into the dining room of the temple and toasted the bride and groom with some sort of green drink that Eva said Sister Davis would like.  Well, she was wrong. It was licorice flavored and licorice has been on Sister Davis's do-not-eat list for a long time! But she dutifully drank two sips and handed it to Elder Davis to finish off.  What would she do without Elder Davis?    What a great companion. 

Eva also handed out chocolates to everyone and Sister Davis did manage to eat hers all by herself.

For lunch, Romans, Julia and Sister Davis made spaghetti.  It was wonderful making a hot lunch in such a beautifully equipped kitchen. 

On Thursday, we had another busy day doing baptismal work,  making meals, and visiting with the young people before finally getting a rest in the early evening when  Elder and Sister Davis decided to take a walk down the small rural road behind the temple.  We were told there was an old Viking cemetery along its route.  As we walked, we talked about our mission and all the wonderful things we have accomplished in just 17 months.  Lauris, after struggling with his own testimony is new serving a mission. Eva was converted to the gospel, got baptized, married and sealed in the temple. Agneta was baptized and got to attend the temple. Dainis found his true love and has a celestial marriage.  We hope we have made an impact in the lives of many more young single adults in the Baltic.  We know without a doubt, these young people have had a huge impact in our lives.

The road was icy and muddy but we persevered and we found a huge open field with a sign that had a little English on it:        To This Magnificent Pagan Cemetery

The cemetery didn't really look like much with all that snow on it. 

But as we tromped through the snow, we saw lots of big rocks standing up.  The sign said this archaeologist's dream was only discovered in the 1990's when they started moving dirt around and discovered hundreds of upright stones scattered around.  There are more than  800 graves visible with many more below the surface, undiscovered. It is now the largest graveyard from the Iron Age in Scandinavia.

Lots of stones but not many Vikings to see....

So when we got back to our computer and looked it up, we saw that these stones are really quite large under all that snow...

By the time we got back to the guest house it was getting dark but the 

 temple is pretty at night.

Our time at the temple was drawing to a close.  Another moment of wonderful memories had been added to our lives.  What a journey we are on and the journey isn't over yet....we still had to get back to Riga.

I Love to See the Temple....

 A little over a month ago, Eva came to Sister Davis and said she wished that Sister Davis could go to the temple with her. She was worried about going through the temple for the first time with someone she didn't know very well. In a Latter-day Saint Temple, worthy members of the church do gospel ordinance work and couples can be sealed together for eternity.  We believe that marriage doesn't end at death but continues on in the next life...an eternal marriage. There are currently 141 LDS temples around the world with 13 more under construction and members all over the world attend the temple as often as they can. Temples are very sacred places, we believe it is literally The House of the Lord and we treat them with reverence and respect.

The Latvian District attends the Stockholm, Sweden temple and had scheduled a week long Latvian temple trip for March 25-30, 2013.  Elder & Sister Davis were arranging a temple trip for the YSA's on those same days so they could do baptismal work...we were especially encouraging the new converts to attend the temple for the first time.  Eva was one of the 8 YSA's on our list who were eager to go.  At the last minute, Eva and Dainis were authorized by the First Presidency to be sealed together in the temple  and we knew this was going to be a really special occasion.

Elder Davis spent hours in preparation. He had to buy airplane tickets for 10 people and needed every one's passport numbers, date of birth, etc. Navigating unfamiliar websites in a foreign language can be tricky though most have an English translation. Then he had to get bus tickets for 10 people from the airport to downtown Stockholm which was more than an hour away. Though the mission was paying for most of the trip, when ordering tickets online (which are generally cheaper) we had to use our credit card.  And we kept racking up the bill. Three of the YSA's were paying their own way and we had to get reimbursed from them.  Anyway, Elder Davis has several new grey hairs added to that mane of his because of this temple trip.  Sister Davis wisely let Elder Davis handle all the financial problems...she did laundry and packed her suitcase.

On top of all those worries, Agneta informs us that she has to take a high school English exam on the day we were leaving for the temple and she thought it started at 1:00 but finds out it doesn't start until 3:00.  Our flight was scheduled to leave at 5:10 PM. and we had already bought her plane ticket. We went to her high school and talked to her counselor about taking the test another day; no go...it seems everyone in Latvia takes the same test on the same day at the same time. We decided to do a "dry run" from her school to the airport to find out how long it will take to drive her there once her test was over. Since it was just an oral test, she was hoping to be done in 20 minutes.   Our "dry run", took us 45 minutes and
   that didn't include the stop by a police officer who informed Elder Davis he was speeding.


We had Elder Ballstaedt lined up to drive Agneta to the airport after her test.  He also did a "dry run" with us to make sure he knew the way.  And then, we realized we had done all we could, it was up to the Lord to make sure Agneta got to the plane before it left Riga.  Prayers were said on her behalf all week.  At the airport, on the day of our departure, we had our hands full shepherding the other YSA's (several had never flown on a plane before) and paying the security fees that Ryanair, a discount airline, requires before every trip. We still managed to keep in touch with Elder Ballstaedt by phone on what was happening on his end with Agneta.  We found out her test started late....3:15; but  she managed to get through all the questions in a half hour and that left her 45 minutes exactly to get to the airport and through security before the gate closed.
Elder Ballstaedt later told us he had never seen so little traffic on the streets at that time of day. Agneta arrived before everyone had finished boarding the plane.

Now we could relax...the plane actually landed in Sweden at the same time it took off from Riga since there is a time zone change and the flight was less than an hour long.  It was lightly snowing when we left Riga but we arrived to a beautiful sunshiny afternoon in Sweden

There was still a lot of snow on the ground. The first thing we noticed about Sweden...there is a lot of rocky ground.

We found our Flygbussarna that was taking us to Stockholm and managed to get all 10 people on  board.

Romans and Julia were excited to be in Sweden.

Aivars told us he has been to Sweden lots of times.

But it was Elder & Sister Davis's first trip to Sweden and we were excited!

 Iveta and Eva were also excited to be here!

Our first Swedish sunset.

Elder Davis felt right at home traveling on that bus...his ancestors came from Sweden.

We arrived in Stockholm after dark and Aivars showed us the way to the train station. Train?! Yes, after the plane ride AND the bus ride, you have to take a TRAIN to Västerhaninge, Sweden, where the temple is located, about a half-hour ride south of Stockholm. The train station was a mass of confusion for us...Elder Davis finally found a ticket booth and bought tickets to Västerhaninge for everyone...
Racked up more charges on our credit card.

We are missing Romans and Elder Davis in the picture because they both have a fondness for cameras.

Then while Sister Davis watched the luggage, Elder Davis scouted around for food. He found a place that sold hot-dogs...yuck, Sister Davis wasn't that hungry, she would wait until something more appetizing came along. But we fed several famished kids with those hot-dogs.
Sweden is a very modern country with four lane highways and a metro system.  Their trains are sleek and fast.

Within 30 minutes we were in Västerhaninge.  Everyone wheels their luggage off the train and follow Aivars hoping he knows the way.  He stops a short way from the train station and asks if anyone wants to get something from the store since we have to pass it to get to the temple.  And everyone went shopping at the Coop with suitcases in tow. 

It was now 8:00PM and from the store parking lot we could see the angel Moroni on top of the temple spire, guiding our way.  Just a block further and we were on temple grounds...and Elder and Sister Davis could now heave a sigh of relief.  All those hours of planning, worrying and prodding and we were all finally in the right place.

There is a Family History Center, a chapel, a Temple President's house and a guest house on the temple grounds.

The guest house is available for a reasonable fee, to anyone going to the temple.  All of the YSA's had shared-rooms with 6 bunk beds in them.  Elder & Sister Davis splurged and got our own room.  The guest house has two stories and a walk-out basement complete with a large kitchen and dining area.  There is a church store in the basement as well. It is beautifully decorated, clean and well organized.


We got to choose a large drawer or cupboard for storing  the food we brought with us. The kitchen has 10  1/2 size refrigerators and each one has a label with three room numbers on it so you can quickly identify which one is yours.  Three rooms share one refrigerator.  We never once worried that some other person would take our food, that is a blessing that comes from being around other temple attendees. They are some of the best people you can find anywhere in the world.

Food is very expensive in Sweden and visitors from other countries bring their own food and cook during the week rather than go out.  Besides the 10 refrigerators, the kitchen is equipped with three stove/ovens,  two sinks, 4 microwaves, glasses, plates, dishes, utensils, and all the pots and pans you could want. You had to wash your own dishes but you put them in a 3 minute sterilizer machine to sanitize them and then put them away. The counter-tops are granite and everyone cleans up their own messes.  It was a dream kitchen compared to what Sister Davis has in her apartment.
The dining room seats 75-100 people and has a piano, and couches at one end for group get-together like Family Home Evening or firesides.


There is a cafeteria in the temple but it is also a little pricey for the YSA's.  We brought cereal for breakfast and spaghetti and planned on buying the meat, milk and bread at the store in Sweden. It was a nice set up and the YSA's did most of their own cooking.

We did have a surprise waiting for us at the guest house....Maksims Kornevs was there to greet us.  You might remember Maksims in past blog posts. He is a member of the Latvian District Presidency, single, bright and fun to be with. He is in Stockholm finishing his Master's thesis and he found out we were coming to the temple and greeted us with open arms.  He serves in the temple all the time and came up each day to be with the Latvian Saints.  There were 15 other Latvian saints at the guest house before the 8 YSA's arrived. With us two old missionaries we totaled 25 people.

Once all of our food was stored in the kitchen and we had unpacked our small suitcases, Elder and Sister Davis decided it was time for bed, the YSA's could stay up talking and having fun but we knew that we had to be in the temple at 10:00 the next morning and we needed rest. It had been a hectic week but all that was behind us... we were going to the House of the Lord and couldn't wait until morning arrived.
The story will be continued in another post....

The Pun of Leadership Training

Sometimes being a missionary is serious work and other times it's a lot of fun.  We have had much laughter on this mission and Elder and Sister Davis hate to take ourselves too seriously.  We know we are doing the Lords work but we believe you should find joy in the service and  not become overbearing about our own importance. We are just a couple of regular people trying to do good things.  Why not enjoy the journey?

Since today's post started out bordering  on the serious side..Sister Davis decided to  make it a little more entertaining; She inserted a few puns through-out the post for her readers enjoyment.  So go ahead and laugh out loud if you want to....                                                                                                  

Last Saturday, Antti, our CES Baltic Coordinator, gathered the Student Councils from Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia together for a day of training. President Boswell was the key-note speaker.  He spoke of the future of the Church in the Baltic  and how the YSA's can help build unity between the three countries.

How does Moses make his tea? 
Hebrews it

It was nice of Elder and Sister Bonner  to drive the Estonian Student Council down in their car.

Elder and Sister Davis taught about the structure of the Institute Student Council. Many YSA committee members didn't know what the President's role was  or what a Vice-President does. We spelled that all out and then let them decide among themselves who would have what duties on their committee. Many had never seen an agenda or knew how to take minutes of a meeting.  They needed to be taught how to evaluate activities and know how to find the YSA's who were once active but no longer come to anything.

Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?

 Antti did training on how important Institute is for strengthening testimonies and showed statistics that 80% of participating Institute students go on missions....and  80% of those who go on missions get a temple marriage.

In the Baltic, we have had 44 returned missionaries since 2002 and only 4 of those have become less-active members of the church. That shows the importance of Institute attendance and serving missions in strengthening your testimony of Jesus Christ.

Lunch was pizza and soda. Sister Davis brought homemade Oreos for a treat.


Venison for dinner again? 
Oh deer! 

We think the YSA's learned a few things.  We know that Latvia's Student Council set up their first meeting for the next Saturday in our apartment. This is what the  future leaders of the church in the Baltic look like:

Lauris S., Romans C., Brigita N., Matiss S., Agneta L., Valeria N., Marianne R., Maksims,  Tina T., 

Sister and Elder Davis, Sister and Elder Bonner

Juris K.

This just in: All the toilets in New York 's police stations have been stolen. The police have nothing to go on.

The next week, we had a laughing good time for another reason...it was a farewell party for a fellow missionary couple! Now usually, that would be a sad occasion but we are all such good friends we couldn't help having a great time when we got together.  Elder & Sister Flake were headed home from their mission...home is Pinetop, Arizona.
 Sister Millet invited everyone to their apartment for dinner and discussion.
Jokes about German sausage are the wurst. 
It was the discussion that got rather amusing. It started with Elder Ballstaedt telling Elder Davis a story from his day at work in the mission office. Sister Davis had taken a small plate of brownies to the office for Sister Adams birthday and Elder Ballstaedt got one. He took a bite of it, set it down and got distracted. When he went to find his half-eaten brownie, he couldn't find it. He said he looked all over the mission office trying to find where he left that brownie....and he never did find it!
The funny part was that Sister Ballstaedt came up as he was finishing the story. She laughed and said, "I ate your brownie!"
Then it was Elder Davis's turn. He shared his own frustrating moment of they day.  He couldn't find his cell phone. This story is even more funny because Elder Davis has a phone holder attached to his belt but his phone never seems to be in it.  So when he went to find his phone, he looked in his holder and it wasn't there. Then he looked in this coat pocket, pants pocket, on the couch, in the kitchen, in the bedroom...finally he says to Sister Davis, "Just call my phone so I can find it."  And she does. Sure enough his phone starts ringing loud and clear...it was in the breast pocket of the white shirt he was wearing.
Not that is funny!

What can we say? Life can be very amusing for senior missionaries and when times get tough, a good laugh clears the air.  In the photo above, everyone is laughing...why?  Because Elder Davis kept trying to get the timer on his camera set to get a group shot and every time he set the camera on the shelf,  the flash went off! He couldn't quite make it into the picture.  Elder Flake had the same problem so his photos show Elder Davis and our photo shows Elder Flake but neither one got a photo of all of us together.

  I stayed up all night top see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me. 

And one last photo of faithful Latvian Saints: 

Latvian visiting teaching at it's best:   Agneta is being visited by Marta and Eva.

Special thanks for the puns... sent by Sister Davis's good friend Dena.

More Cowbell

Sometimes Elder Davis shares favorite things from his past with the young single adults in Riga, Latvia and they, in eagerness share his delight and enjoyment....like when he showed the Christmas movie, "It's a Wonderful Life".  The YSA's liked it and embraced the great message of the movie.

Another example  of his sharing "old things" was when he shared the song, "Hey Paula" (1962) by that well known group Paul and Paula with Dimitrijs and Marina.

That is the type of song that once you have heard it, gets into your head, sticks to your brain and when you least expect it, you will burst out in song to the amusement of those around you.  Well, that is what happened to the engaged couple as they were walking around the streets of Riga trying to find a suit for their wedding.  The song just kept coming to their minds and they sang it together:

Hey, hey, Paula, I want to marry you...

Hey, hey, Paula, no one else will ever do.

I've waited so long...for school to be through

Paula, I can't wait no more for you...

                                                 My love....my love.

Now just think about that. These are two "kids" who weren't even born when that song was written. Not only that but they are Russian speaking....English isn't even their second language, it's their third. And yet when they were back at our apartment, Marina wanted to listen to the words again so she could sing it on the very long bus ride back to Moscow.

Then we had spunky little Agneta over for a few nights when she was going through a rough time and Elder Davis shared the "laughing Elvis" version of "Are You Lonesome Tonight" by Elvis Presley. If you haven't heard THAT classic, look it up on YouTube.  It is a recording of Elvis singing in Las Vegas and he sees a bald man in the audience and changes the words to the song...and then CAN'T control his laughter.  It is infectious and Elder Davis uses it to cheer up the YSA's when they get down.

So last night, Marta B. texted us with this message:  

"I've got a fever". 

 For you die-hard, classic Saturday Night Live fans, you may know where this very unmissionary post is going.
Sister Davis's first thought was, "Oh no!  We are planning a temple trip to Sweden and now one of our YSA's is sick!"   So she slowly texts this message back to Marta:
 "Take an aspirin and get some sleep. If you aren't better tomorrow we will get you a priesthood blessing." 


Just after she sent the text...she receives this text message back from darling Marta:

"And the only prescription is MORE COWBELL!"

A moment of shock... and then a burst of laughter from Sister Davis.

Yes, Elder Davis had shared this classic Saturday Night Live sketch starring Will Farrell and Christopher Walken with Marta several weeks ago. In the sketch, Walken portrays a fictional music producer and Will Farrell a member of a rock band who happens to play the cowbell. At the climax of the skit, Walken exclaims: "Guess what?  I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!"

Sister Davis realizes most of you do not need to be told what this sketch is about but her mother reads this blog and probably has no clue what "more cowbell" means. And since said mother doesn't know what YouTube is either, she needs to explain the sketch.  If you don't know what Sister Davis is talking about either...just go online and type in "more cowbell" and watch the video.

More Cowbell has become a pop-culture phrase ever since this skit came out in the year 2000...but the Latvian YSA's didn't know that until Elder Davis introduced it to them. And now they are playing practical jokes on us using our own comedy sketches!

How very funny!

Thanks Marta for making our evening more fun...

and we are glad you aren't really sick.