Sept. 2, 2013

Hey everyone! 

This last week was great! Thank you grandma sharon and Melissa for the birthday packages that arrived this last week!! I loved them! You both are awesome! 

This last week was really fun! Sister B and I are best friends! We laugh a lot and really enjoy our time together! She is doing really well. I can tell she stills gets overwhelmed sometimes and the language frustrates her at some points, but she is doing so great!! Her Latvian is already so good and she understands quite a bit of what people say to her! I swear she came pretrained from the MTC. There is nothing I need to teach her and she teaches me WAY more than I teach her! I love it and I love working with her!

This last Saturday, there were two baptisms that we got to attend. One was a Russian baptism that we attended with our investigator Harijs. He seemed to really like it, and I hope he felt the spirit. We are still working with him and helping him build his testimony. He enjoys meeting with us and still reads the book of mormon everyday, so hopefully we can help him soon see the need for baptism.

The other baptism was a little 8 year old girl from the Latvian branch here. She was super cute! 8 year old baptisms don't happen a ton here, but it was super cute! The spirit was so strong and really testisfied of the truth of the ordinance she was partaking in! I loved it and it was really fun to see. :)

Also, we got a new investigator this week. Here is what I told President Boswell about him: "As for this week, last night we got a new investigator, from England. His name is Jamie. I met him on the street several weeks ago and we had a nice conversation, but at the time he made it very clear that he was not interested. He said that he had seen and talked to missionaries before and he wasn't really interested in finding anymore about our church. Well, then this last week Sister B and I ran into him again and had a really nice conversation about our church and he said at one point. "I have ran into you twice now Sister Cloward, I think that we need to meet and talk about your church." So, sure enough that is what we did. We had a lesson with him last night, in English!, and taught him a full first lesson and he loved it! He is really excited to start reading the book of Mormon and said several times. "I want to really find out about all of this. I'll write down all me questions as I read and you can answer them for me." He has a huge belief in God. He lives in Latvia and once a week travels back to England, but is hear every weekend mostly and then for a week at a time after that. He is married to a Latvian and speaks a little Latvian. He is awesome and very excited to find out about these things." That experience testifies to me that there are people prepared for me and he is one of those that Sister B and I needed to find and teach.
Questions from Shayla: So I'm wondering what people in Latvia look like generally? Dark hair or light hair? Light or dark skin? Any special traits like squinty eyes or big noses? 

ANSWER: Latvian people are really pretty. They have really high cheek bones in general. They are mostly tanner skinned people. But they are white people in general. It is weird for Latvians to see black people or even more olive skinned people because they are very white. As for hair color, i'm not sure because a lot of latvians, if not all, die their hair. :)

(Morgan and dad, i'll answer your questions next week)

So that is about it for today! I just wanted to end with my testimony. Yesterday we had a lesson with two members in our area who are both about to go on missions. They both leave in a month. One is going to Czech Republic and one is going to Temple Square in Salt Lake. We talked about how we need to receive a confirmation that our call came from a prophet who received revelation from God. So, we talked to them about finding out if their mission calls really came from God and challenged them to receive a confirmation of the divinity of their call. As we were teaching I recieved a confirmation again that my call came from God. I was supposed to come to Latvia and speak Latvian, because that is where God knew I would grow the most and I could help the best with this work. God loves us and he is our Heavenly Father. That much I know! I love you all! Thanks for everything!!

Love, 

Sister Cloward