Monday, September 29

June 16, 2014

Hello my family, 

So I have so many emails to reply to and so little time, but I am so glad that I get to write you all!! I can't even begin to think of what to write you all, but I will do what I can. A lot happened this week and I want to express it all!!!

First off, we had a zone conference this week with President and Sister Boswell. It was his last as mission president. :'( I was so sad! We're going to miss him a lot. We'll have a new mission president in about 2 weeks! It is so crazy, but I'm excited to get to know President and Sister Harding as well. They will be wonderful to be around. :)

So, to describe the title, we had transfers last week!!! Crazy!! No one really moved, and all that happened is we just got another sister with us! My second trainee, Sister Mitton, has joined us in Liepaja. It comes with sad situation as her companion had to go home due to health problems I got an opportunity to say goodbye to her and cried a lot. It was my beloved Sister Woodland, who I was in the MTC with. I love her to death, and will miss her dearly, but will see her in no time at all!!! Here is what I wrote President Boswell about transfers, "I was surprised about transfers, but I am so excited at the same time! I am enjoying the time with a threesome! I love Sister Mitton and Sister Ormsby. We work well together and laugh a lot. I love it! We are open with each other so that we can make the threesome work. We have done several splits with members in the last few days already so that we can cover double the amount of ground. We really like that concept and hope it can continue. I love this work and I'm glad to share it with these two great missionaries!"

So now, updates about recent converts, because that is mostly who we are working with right now.

"Skaidrīte came to church yesterday! It was such a blessing! I was so happy to see her there! She came and paid her tithing for the first time. The members missed her so much and took her right in. She formed some new friends. We didn't even get a chance to deal with the guy that had come and said he wanted to live with her, because she kicked him out before we got a chance to get to action on it! Skaidrīte is such a champ!! She also told us yesterday that she is going to talk to her boss and work extra hours on Friday so that she can always have Sunday off. She is bringing her boss pictures from her baptism to show him why she doesn't want to work. She tells everyone that she is a Christian and attends the only true Christian church and that is why she doesn't want to work on Sundays. She is strong and is trying her best. Of course, mistakes are still made, but she does the best that she can. I love that about her.

"Viktorija is doing well. She is coming to church again, but not staying for all three hours. She doesn't like primary because 1) there is no one her age and 2) the closest people to her age are two boys that pick on her. We are working on figuring out a solution, but we are not sure what that will be yet. At least she comes to sacrament meeting and she is well befriended by Maija and Inga (the Elder's investigator). We are going to talk to Ilze (also a recent convert we are working with) about what she thinks will be a good solution.

"We don't really have any updates on investigators, but we are continuing to find and that is the most important thing. We are really working on building the relationships with the members through service and PMG lessons. We have a lot of lessons with members planned for this week, and we hope that soon we will be able to see them come through with new investigators. We have potential."

Another update about someone, something sad that really had me down yesterday. We have a recent convert we are working with who has a cute 5 year old daughter that I love! This convert has had such a rough history. She is 19, but really changed her life around to be baptized. She is incredible. Well, her daughter was stabbed in the back this last week at this member's house. Someone from this member's past came to visit her and tried to hurt her. It was awful! Well, her daughter was in ICU for a few days, but yesterday she called us and told us that she had passed away. I cried hard. I love this member and that little girl. I got a blessing after that and was promised strength from the atonement. I know that I have received that. I called the member again later that night and talked to her more about it. She is shutting everyone off in her life, but will at least talk to us. I cried with her and testified of the power of the atonement and the fact that she can live with her daughter forever. I told her to work on going to the temple. I know that she will be able to make it there and will be able to be with her daughter forever. She has a hard time believing it and seeing it now, but I know that it is true. Families can be eternal and I am so glad that my family is eternal through the ordinances of the temple. Please keep this member in your prayers.

Something I learned at conference this last week that I want to testify of is the pre-mortal existence. We knew each other before this life. In this mission we talk a lot about the fact that as missionaries we knew and chose our mission president to be our mission president and that we loved him. We talked a lot about the fact that we helped each other grow as spirits so that we would be valiant and come down here and complete our mission. I know that this is all true! President Boswell said that  another missionary told him that he prayed for President Boswell from heaven while President was serving as a missionary, because he knew that President needed to succeed in his mission. President then shared that with us, and I felt a confirmation of that. I know I prayed for the people I love who came to earth before me so that they would succeed at that, which they were foreordained to do. I prayed for my mission president, but I also prayed for my parents and grandparents, and I know that my future children pray now for me! What a blessing! Think about it, pray about it, and you will know that that is true too.

I'm out of time, but I had so much more I wanted to say. I love you all and I'll write the rest next week! Keep in touch and have a great, wonderful, sunshiny week!!!

Ar mīlestību,
Māsa Klauvarda

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