More Thomas News

This weeks letter:

I have the card. But by now it has warmed us so much I'm beginning to think the gloves aren't necessary. Will get a hat, though. During the colder part of winter it was my ears that were hurting with numbness, not my hands.

This week saw us use the area book to find some people to talk to. So far it hasn't been so bad. We found one guy in his 40s- Ruslon- who we've been meeting with fairly regularly. He was going to come to church on Sunday, but his poor mum went into hospital. I'm not sure it helped when Elder Rassmussen told him that his grandmother had a similar kind of sickness and died, but can't really change that.

We also set up a meeting with one other guy -Maxim- who went to sleep before we got to him. He had been working all day.

Apart from that we have had a fair bit of office work, a fair bit of tracting. Which actually resulted in a somewhat positive experience.

It was my turn to pick the apartment block that we would tract. It had been a pretty bad night for tracting, and I was beginning to feel pretty down (times like these are when the Lord does something great, I think it is the time when I'm most humble). But I picked a block and we started there. Going up that staircase, I felt INCREDIBLY excited. I had a sudden boost of energy. For most of that night I had plodded up the stairs, this time I ran, jumping two or three at a time. I had never felt this way about tracting an apartment block but this time the message was clear: someone is here. Someone will listen.

Well, it seemed to be a block full of rejections, but for some reason my mind wouldn't allow the thought that I had made the wrong choice. And when the last door came, I found out I was right to do so. Paus, an old man who had been drinking, but not plastered let us in. He was the most friendly person I had met in the Baltics thus far. He chatted with us for a while and said he would like to talk to us.

That wasn't the only experience this week where I feel I was led by the spirit. This week, while teaching Ruslon, I pulled out an analogy about baptism- focusing on the meaning behind the symbol. How baptism (like a persons signature) though a symbol, is a symbol that seals an agreement between us and God. After the lesson, Elder Rassmusen told me he had never heard that analogy before. I told him I hadn't either. The spirit leads missionaries. I don't know what I did to make me worthy of these experiences, but somehow the spirit was able to communicate with me stronger.

The branch here is incredible, we have some truly special people in the Imanta Russian Branch. One of the more friendly (and that is a HUGE call, this is a very friendly branch) members is Vladimir. When you see him... it's kinda like you're looking at a mad scientist, he has all the physical characteristics of one who is currently trying to create a monster. But under that he is a really friendly, warm man- with a PhD in chemistry, so that monster thing might be just around the corner if he's not careful.

Did something this week that I felt was the Christlike thing to do. We passed a couple kids who started throwing snowballs at us. They were diligent enough to keep this up for about half a kilometre until we reached the bus stop. One kid left, but the other kept it up, until an old lady started yelling at them, I came in and said there wasn't any harm done, they were only young, and started talking to one of them. He asked where I was from and we had a short conversation. I suppose he would have learned something if I just let the old lady yell, but I came off of that feeling pretty good.

I suppose you'll want to know how the birthday deal went. Well, on Friday, after district meeting at the mission office, we started setting up chairs and a table to eat. I had no idea what was going on, but I helped out anyway. So a little while later all the missionaries in the Imanta area (Russian and Latvian) had gathered in the kitchen. Where one of the office sisters starts a chorus of "happy birthday", along with the rest of the missionaries. I almost fell off my feet. we then proceeded to have a wonderful lunch. Sunday was just the ordinary Sunday. Which I liked very much.