Thomas News

Well, last week things took a turn for the worst with Aleksandra.

After weeks of not talking to her daughter herself, God forced it on her and the results were not pretty. Aleksandra came with us to a baptismal service. Not hers, as she had not yet spoken to her daughter. While we were walking there, He daughter drove past and saw her on the street with us. She was totally enraged!

She later phoned up Aleksandra three times that day with the intent on yelling at her. Later, Aleksandra went to her daughters house (How she could, I don't know). The whole family was gathered there and they started yelling at her. Swearing, telling her how foolish she was, the works. Aleksandra was trying to keep the saviour in her mind. She said that when she closed her eyes she could see him, but when she opened them again to see her family yelling at her, the feeling of love left.

That should have been the end of the story. Hardly. Aleksandra's daughter also called all of Aleksandra's neighbours and they all came around and told her what a bad person she was for joining what they called "the sectists". She told us that she felt as though everyone was against her.

She says that we can no longer go to her, and that we'll just have to figure out some other way. Needless to say, we've been praying and fasting for her. Also needless to say that it makes my blood boil thinking about the way that Aleksandra's own relatives (who, by the way, don't care much about religion themselves) could be so heartless to such a sweet old woman. We are not giving up on her yet. She has a solid testimony of the gospel, but needs a little time to recover. The whole story disgusts me.

It hasn't all been bad this week, though. This Monday we had an activity with the branch (for which I foolishly forgot my camera). Monday is the Latvian holiday known as Ligo (pronounced "Lee-go"). It's the longest day of the year and as such, there are a lot of fairly pagan traditions surrounding it. Including wearing a leaf wreath on your head, and jumping over a fire. A lot of fun, and great for the members.

This week has been the start of a new transfer. I'm still with Elder Berryhill. We have a VERY serious goal to find a family. And not just any family. In our prayers we have been very specific with who we want to find- our leaders have been recommending this quite a lot over the last two zone conferences. We've also been willing to let the Lord know what we are willing to do, and what we feel we need to do to accomplish this. For example, how many contacts are we willing to get, how many lessons are we willing to teach this week, etc. I'll let you know how this progresses.

Well, that's all from me this week. I love and miss all of you.