Called to Serve!

One of the YSA's were are working with in Latvia received his mission call and we were so excited for him.  Lauris hasn't had an easy life and we have been mentoring him.  When Elder Millet told us Lauris's mission call had arrived from Salt Lake City and was at the mission office, we asked Lauris if he could wait two days to open it at June's Break-the-Fast.  He said, "Yes, I can do".

After all, Lauris has been living on his own since he was 15 years old, and we wanted to make sure that opening his mission call was a grand experience for him. We invited EVERYONE who might be interested...which meant Sister Davis had to make 4 huge casseroles for dinner. Luckily, one could be made in the crock pot and thus we only had to cook three in the oven (one at a time, of course) and then worry about how we could keep them all warm until dinner time.

Below, is Latvia's newest senior missionary couple, Elder & Sister Adams, who were supposed to go on a mission to  Mongolia but were denied entry visas.  They came to see what Break-the-fast was all about and were a great help.....hmmm,  maybe we need to invite them more often.

 

 So after a hearty dinner....Elder Davis has everyone who ever served a mission tell Lauris one inspirational story or one thing they liked about their mission. Dainis is translating into Latvian...Elder Davis is telling about his mission to England, a looooong time ago....and Lauris is nervous. 

It's Elder Adams turn to talk about his mission.....listen up Lauris!

Everyone is excited for Lauris....Lina is filming the event for the 20th Anniversary of the Saints in Latvia which will be celebrated in two weeks......Svetlana,  Natalia, Alexandrs (Sasha) and Maksims...all Russian Latvians.

Dainis had surveyed everyone in the room about where they thought Lauris would be serving....Lauris had already told Sister Davis he did NOT want to go to Russia (even though he speaks Russian!).  Some of the answers were pretty funny...like West Africa, Washington D.C., and even Latvia.  And now Lauris...it's time to open the envelope! He tries opening it from the back and the glue is just too strong.....

So, Elder Millet steps in with his trusty pocket knife and slits the top right open, impressing everyone in the room! And the call is read...."You are hereby called to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine Mission.

Well, Lauris is excited about that and will be heading for the Missionary Training Center in Madrid, Spain the beginning of August.  Congratulations!

Bob Visits A Palace

Bob really isn't the kind of dog one expects to see in a palace. He doesn't have a whole lot of class...in fact, when you push his tummy in, he says in  nasally Spanish,  "I am getting hungry....VERY hungry". What can we say, he started life as a Taco Bell Chihuahua.  Someone recently told us, after he heard Bob "talk"... "That was the creepiest voice I have ever heard",  and he could be right.

But Bob was along for the ride and a Palace was where we were headed. It was cloudy when we arrived at Rundale (roon-dah-lee) and a few rain drops started falling as we parked the car in a grassy area. 

Rundale Palace is so big and such a tourist attraction, there are four different places to eat there. And we were hungry!   We got out of the rain by ducking into a little Kafenica. The food was hot, homemade and inexpensive. We were all happy, even Bob.

While we were eating, it started raining "buckets". Oh no!  Everyone of us, had left our umbrellas in the car.  The parking lot is a long walk away.   We decided we had to brave the elements and headed into the storm.  Below you see Sister Millet and  Sister Davis with our hoods up.

This is just where the horses were kept!

The palace is still a little way further....just keep walking, and walking...

We enter into the courtyard and still have a ways to go before we get to the entrance...

but at.  And now we have arrived! Rundale Palace.

 Rundāle Palace is one of the most outstanding Baroque style buildings in Latvia. It was built between 1736 and 1740 as a summer residence for Duke Ernst Johann of Courland.  At the time the Duchy of Courland was a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This palace (it is really big!) was designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, an Italian architect, who designed many Baroque palaces for the Russian nobility. The Duchy of Courland was taken over by the Russian Empire in 1795, and Catherine the Great took a dislike to the Duke and did what any spiteful woman would do....she gave the palace to someone else.
She decided to give it to the brother of her boyfriend...Valerian Zubov. He died in 1804 and his young widow, a local girl got the house to herself. During the German occupation of World War I,  the German army established a hospital and a commandant's office there.

It has over 50 rooms that are open to the public and others are still be renovated.  The entry hall could house  a small army all by itself.

The rooms are opulent and ostentatious and we had no "tour guide". You are just allowed to wander around at your own leisure.  Each room had it's own detailed description list that we could read. 

The first room we went into was the "green" room.  We soon found out that every single room had gorgeous European paintings on the walls.  The Duke was a serious art collector.

Nearly every room had a handpainted mural on the ceiling....

And the long hallways are just as gorgeous as the rest of the place.

Because of the rain, we didn't get tickets to the garden tour but we got a great view from some of the rooms.....

A design made of hedges, grass, flowers and ground cover....pretty creative.

This is the Dukes bedroom. Notice that HE has two furnaces in his room....

This was the ladies bathroom....



And now back to the real world, where two senior missionaries have a small apartment, a short bed, no yard, no view, and no thermostat.  But as nice as this palace is to visit...who would want to live in a palace everyday?  We are happy where we are, thank you very much!

Saints by the Sea

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds religion classes called Seminary & Institute  (S&I)  during the school year for young people to have an in depth study of the scriptures. This year the Latvian students studied the books of the Old Testament. These classes give students the opportunity to understand the doctrines that Christ taught and how they can apply the lessons in their lives today.


We have been told by our prophet, Thomas S. Monson,  to make Institute a priority. Institute classes are for Young Adults 18-30 years old...but in the Baltic most Institute classes are combined with the seminary age kids, 14-17 year olds.  Not only does Latvia not have very many students, we don't have very many teachers, so it makes sense to combine the classes.


In the spring, a graduation ceremony is held to honor those students who completed the course. Elder & Sister Davis, along with Noemi, planned a ceremony in the coastal city of Liepaja, Latvia. The class there had about 12 people attending (several older than YSA age) and they deserved some recognition for their diligence.

Early Sunday morning we drove to the coast....with Noemi, snacks, a dozen roses, brownies, and paper products. We got there in time to unload everything and get to the chapel before sacrament meeting started. Only there were so many people in attendance, the only seats left were the front row!

Two students talked about what they learned in seminary, a young single adult talked about institute class and the teacher, Kristina gave a talk.

The Branch President gave some remarks at the end of sacrament and then Noemi and Sister Davis gave out flowers to those who attended the combined Seminary/Institute class.....


Kristina, on the right in the photo below,  is an excellent teacher, one of the best that Sister Davis has ever seen in the church and she has seen some pretty awesome teachers. We would like to clone her and put her in every church classroom in the Baltic. Good teachers can change the world.

The first to receive her recognition is Sintia (Cynthia) who is a remarkable young woman. She was the one who translated everyone's remarks for us into English...she's 16 years old.

The next seminary age student was Ingus (in-goose)...again, a remarkable and spiritual young man.
Kristina was given a big, bouquet of roses and chrysanthemums for her dedication as a teacher. She is expecting her third child in the next few weeks.

 And these are the students who attended...along with the Branch President and kids.

And then it was time for brownie sundaes!  And guess who Elder & Sister Davis met in Liepaja unexpectedly?  Eva! She was visiting her cousin and came to church.

On the way home, Noemi says, "Are you up to a little sight-seeing on the way back?" 

"What a silly question, of course we are!"

So we head to the beach in Liepaja....

We passed by this statue and Eva said,

"Elders Davis don't you want to get a picture of this?"

Elder Davis: It's just an ugly bear eating honey."

Eva: "No, it is not! This is Winnie-the-Pooh."

Then we walked past this remarkable play area for kids...complete with giant ship, climbing tubes, riding scooters and fun things that our grandchildren would have loved to have seen.

And within 5 minutes we were standing on this very large stretch of Liepaja coast line....

                                            

   The three amiga's....oops! In Latvia...tris draugi

We drove up the coast aways (after a slight detour due to construction) and came to a special place that Noemi called the "surprise".  Only the surprise ended up being on her.

We parked the car and headed up this lovely trail, along with a hoard of mosquito's...... Noemi had been here once before and knew there was some spectacular scenery ahead.

But when we arrived...Surprise! someone had destroyed the wooden steps that led down to the beach and we were stuck on the cliff  overlooking the sand.

 Now, you might not think this is such a remarkable sight but you have to remember that Latvija is a pretty flat country. So this cliff is quite the tourist attraction, and the wooden stairs look like they had rotted, so someone took them out. It was still  a pretty view and reminded Sister Davis of Los Osos, California.



It was such a lovely day, made for us to enjoy the beauty of God's creations.  We are silly when we don't take the time to appreciate how beautiful the world is around us.

Elder & Sister Davis poise for a "cute couple" shot.

There are so many interesting buildings here, you can't help but stop and take pictures.  We hope we never take these sights for granted while we are in Latvia.

And finally, our main destination on the way back to Riga.  Kuldiga (kool-dee-ga) ...a town from another time. It was founded in 1242, alongside the Venta River.  In the 16th century, Kuldiga's castle was one of the residences of  Duke Gothard  Kettler. 

Most of the town managed to escape the numerous wars and fires through the years. You can still find original wooden buildings dating from the 16th and 17th centuries.




It's amazing that buildings are centuries old here....

Kuldiga has the longest brick bridge in Europe at 538 ft. long. It spans the Venta River, and was built in 1874.

The bridge is just down stream from the widest waterfall in Europe.


The Baltic region has so many places to fish and so few people... it's a fisherman's paradise.... Elder Davis' wishes he had brought his fishing pole.

And now you will get to see Europe's widest waterfall....

are you sure you are ready for this?


Don't get too excited...it is wide, but it's the little bittiest waterfall we have ever seen.
This is some tourist attraction...you can barely hear the water falling.

This is the first waterfall that Sister Davis has actually seen people walking across...




It was such a gorgeous day! Notice the two fishermen,  below, who have the river to themselves.

We were told that this is a statue of  "Suitu seivas", Latvian folk singers that have a unique singing style. Later Sister Davis saw a  suitu group singing on YouTube...they have a unique style all right.  The ladies are really just singing/talking loudly while some harmonize by chanting in the background.






Doesn't this seem an idyllic place to live?

Two cannon over looking the widest waterfall in all of Europe? 
It makes sense....
It's not like that waterfall could ever protect the city from it's enemies.

Kodak moment?

It was getting late and we needed to get home to Riga...so we plug in our GPS and she tells us to turn onto an unpaved road..
.

We turned on the road out of Sabile and we noticed a whole lot of people watching us from a yard next to the road. Who were all those people?  Was someone having a BBQ?

Elder Davis slowed way down to take a look...and found the people were actually dummies or maybe dolls. Homemade figures depicting military people, children, teachers, policemen, businessmen, mothers...and if you look closely the quirky lady who made these figures is standing amongst them watching all the people in cars stop to take pictures. We waved at her but we got no response. Can you find her?

Can you see her now?  Middle left, the only figure with a tan face.

Think of all the hours of quirkiness she must have endured to create her family of dolls.

The World is a funny place sometimes!

But as we settled back onto another dirt road,  we wondered.....

 did our GPS really know where we were?

We decided it didn't matter where we were, we were having fun.

This was the neatest old building...

And after thinking we would never get home....we arrived at Jurmala where Eva says, "Stop! I am thirsty!"

Elder Davis pulls over wondering where she is going to get a drink. She takes out an empty water bottle from her backpack...and runs across the street, telling Sister Davis to come too.

Where is Eva going? And what is that nasty smell in the air?

Sister Davis sees a gazebo with what looks like a stone well in the middle of it.....

And downhill a little way is a marble lizard with water coming out of it's mouth

 Eva crouches a few feet away from it holding her bottle up to the lizards mouth, filling it with icy cold water .

"Eva, what are you doing?"

Well, some words are just to hard to translate into English. She didn't know the English word for a sulfur spring. But she said the water is very good for you with vitamins, so she fills her water bottle with this cold, spring water whenever she can.

In the car, she tells Sister Davis to try a sip.
"Okay, but just a sip..."
And then Eva says, " Hold you nose as you drink, it doesn't smell good."

No kidding! It not only stinks, it tastes awful!  Sister Davis can NOT believe she actually tried that water!  But Eva insists it is very healthy and will do her good.

This picture of the cloud studded sky shows how light it is at 8:30 at night.

We drop Noemi off at home. She was happy to have had a break from her two sweet, but active boys all day. We drove Eva home because though it was light out, it was 9:30.  She lives in what we would call a dorm in the USA but here they are called hostels. Hers is a girls only hostel so Elders Davis wasn't allowed in but she really wanted Sister Davis see where she lived.

Wow, we certainly got an education today...

starting with the recognition of some very dedicated saints in Liepaja, then visiting with two very dedicated saints as we traveled unknown roads and ending with two tired but dedicated missionaries with full hearts and educated minds. Life is good in Latvia. 

I Was Born A Traveling Man

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” – Saint Augustine

Elder Davis loves to travel.  He is "King of the Road" when he gets behind the wheel of his 2010 Opel Meriva and heads for a new destination. Sister Davis is pretty much along for the ride...or so she thought.

“Remember what Bilbo used to say: It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” – JRR Tolkien

Vilnius, Lithuania is a 4 hour destination from our Riga apartment and that meant getting up early to make it in time for the marriage seminar.  As we headed out of town, we saw what appeared to be the beginning of a gorgeous, sunny day.  The landscape is a mixture of all colors green, while the sky sets if off with a background of blue. How delighted we both were to be outside the city and into the country.

Our last trip to Lithuania was during the dead of winter...white, frozen, dreary. But now God's creations were out in full force with beautiful bright colors. We thought these were fields of  mustard....

but a quick look in our handy guide book....

....said they are fields of rapeseed (known here-abouts as rape). Sister Davis had seen bottles of Rapeseed cooking oil in the stores and knew it must be popular but she didn't realize that this is one of Latvia's own products. We saw field after field of  bright yellow rapeseed on our trip to Lithuania.

Sister Davis was curious....the plant looks like the mustard plant that is so very common in the western United States where she grew up. Even the leaves look the same, so she had to search for answers online. She discovered that the two are different variety's of the same genus. And their seeds are both used for cooking oil...in fact the canola oil we buy in the USA is made from a type of rapeseed

According to Wikipedia: Canola is made with the seeds of Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) or field mustard (Brassica campestris L.). Its seeds are used to produce edible oil suitable for consumption by humans and livestock. The oil can also be used for fuel.  Canola was first made from rapeseed  at the University of Manitoba in Canada in the early 1970's. It was bred naturally to have lower acid than most rapeseed oil  and thus it's name:  "Canadian oil, low acid".

After about 2 1/2 hours of driving, Elder Davis started getting tired.  He had awaken earlier than his companion (something he does frequently...it's a Davis trait) and now it was time for his morning nap. Sister Davis was in a quandary. She wanted to be supportive but she hasn't driven a car for six months and driving in a foreign country SOUNDS SCARY.  And to top it off, the Meriva has a manual transmission.
Yikes, a stick-shift with Sister Davis driving....

"Grit your teeth, Sister Davis you can do this.

And that is how Sister Davis ended up driving the little black Meriva, on the roads of Lithuania. She was a little rusty with her shifting but since it was a highway with little traffic on it, she managed to get on the road, shift into fifth gear and could cruise along, while Elder Davis was zonked out in the seat next to her. Just before arriving at Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, Sister Davis gave the wheel back to Elder Davis. There is a limit to how much driving courage she had.

We spent the day having fun at the marriage seminar, and then went out to dinner with  Pres. & Sister Boswell and E/S Flake.  President Boswell asked if we were game to try a Brazilian restaurant. Sister Davis has always wanted to try a Brazilian Grill...she heard they serve lots of meat.

And she wasn't disappointed. There was one waiter who came to our table about 8 times with different types of meat for us to try. Grilled chicken, chicken hearts, turkey, pork, and last of all, beef ( because it's expensive and by then you are full!) Of course we over ate...it was mandatory. It felt a little odd though to be eating at a Brazilian Grill in Lithuania!

We spent the night with E/S Flake....

(see them on the balcony saying goodbye?)

...got up early Sunday morning because Elder Davis was born a traveling man...

and we were expected in Daugavpils (dog-of-pills) by 10:00AM.  Holy cow! It's a 3 hour drive and we had been asked to give talks in sacrament meeting. 

You might be wondering how we came to be giving talks in a place we had never been before. It was Elder Stucki's fault. Elder Stucki needed Russian Book of Mormons. His companion Elder Southard needed the money that his grandma had sent him. They needed a courier fromthe mission office and Elder Stucki heard that we wanted to come meet the new Institute teacher in Daugavpils, some day. Someday became Sunday. So we were to deliver two boxes of Book of Mormons and some cash. And, when the branch president heard we were coming....we were given the assignment to speak.

We got the phone call while we were at the marriage seminar and what could we say?
"You want us to speak tomorrow for 15 minutes each?"
"Okay.

We thought yesterday was a nice day...this Sunday morning was spectacular! Warm, sunny with a slight breeze, it was one of those rare perfect days that just makes you happy. We drove by numerous lakes on our way up Eastern Lithuania.....and lots of quaint little villages full of houses with steep roofs.

One of the interesting sights we saw all along the way...cows standing in fields with no fences around them.  In fact, most farms don't have ANY fencing.  And we seldom see more than a few cows per farm.

Our GPS took us to the heart of downtown Daugavpils, a city that is on the border of Belarus and is only 75 miles from the Russian/Latvian border. Daugavpils is Latvia's second largest city with over 100,000 people and is a major rail transportation hub to Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.  

Once there, we couldn't find the church. So with a call to Elder Stucki, we were told to park where we were and they would come get us. It seems the church is located on a street that is only for pedestrian traffic, no cars allowed. 

The church is located  on the second story of the building below:

Most of the members are Russian speaking (52% of the city are Russian).  Below, we have a photo of President Spalvens, the branch president, a sweet and humble man who introduced us as "honored guests".

Believe us, the honor was all ours to get to meet the wonderful members in Daugavpils.

It is a small branch with only about 20 people in attendance

(and that included 3 sets of missionaries!)

This is Elder Stucki with Brother Timofey. Brother Timofey is both deaf and mute and yet his spirit shines forth like we have never seen.  He knows Latvian sign language and one of our young missionaries, Elder Southard, learned American sign language in high school. They are not the same and so Elder Southard had to not only learn Russian for his mission he is now learning a little Latvian sign language from Bro. Timofey.  Bro. Timofey takes the sacrament and then a member sits next to him and writes on a piece of paper what is being said in the meeting. 

Bro. Timofey was asked before the meeting to give the closing prayer. He gives it in sign language. No one bows their heads to "hear" the prayer, they watch his hands intently to show their reverence to what he is saying.  It was wonderful, you can really feel the spirit of his prayer without a word being said.

We  stayed for Sunday School, talked to the new Institute teacher  and then headed out back to Riga.

Sister Davis never gets tired of seeing the many ramshackle farms along the way. They are so different from the newer buildings we see in America, yet people have lived in them for generations.

And these crumbling buildings, are literally, everywhere in the countryside.  Built ages ago, these were once the farm houses, barns, and out buildings of generations past. And someone made a decision, long ago, to move on...if only these walls could talk, what  a story they could tell!

We see interesting houses often on our travels...

Well, there is no telling where our travels will lead us next.....come back again and find out!