Letters from the Baltic

  Dear Missionaries,   We are so excited to have you come to your originally assigned mission!  Sister Huff and I just arrived in Riga, Latvia a few hours ago with the group that preceded you!  So, in a matter of hours, our mission size more than doubled as we brought into Riga 25 missionaries that had been reassigned and added them to the 14 that were here in the field.     You are to leave your current missions on Thursday, April 8 th , and arrive in Croatia Friday, April 9th.  There are a few things that we would like to you do to prepare to come next week.  You will also be receiving some instructions from the Missionary Travel Department.    If they ask you to fill out a “Enter Croatia” application online, please disregard this.  We will fill this out for you.  Bring at least two passport pictures with you when you come. Let your credit card company know that you will be traveling through Croatia, into Latvia and...

  Hello Everyone Short Version: Another great week in Northwest Indiana. Hammond is filled with so people interested in hearing our message. We've been doing a lot more Facebook finding which us working really well. Its a bit brain numbing if I'm being honest thought. Contacting people in person is so much more enjoyable for me, but its so much more convenient for people to answer a video call than their door. We actually got to baptize someone this week that we found over Facebook. Yay! Long Version: Well this week was my first week driving which was very....interesting. Whoever designed the cities in Indiana must have LOVED stop signs because they are at basically every intersection. Sometime for no reason at all, poof there's a stop sign. First day driving and I was not expecting to see a stop sign and going very speedy when I finally sad it. I didn't run the stop sign and I when I came to a stop I was in the middle of the intersection.       Me and my compan...

  Hello Everybody!      Week one in the field has been amazing. I'm serving in Indiana currently, Elder Jones and Tapp are showing me the ropes. We've been teaching like crazy it seems like.       There have been so many people on Facebook or over the phone or in person that we want to contact. We don't have enough time to reach all the people we want to. That is a very good problem for us to have.       We had a baptism with Mia which was great! Hooray for baptisms. We have another baptism with Abbey coming up this Saturday. Our zone will have had 1 baptism each week for the month of March.      The diversity here compared to Tri Cities is so drastic. A lot of times, me and my companions are the only white people around. Our area covers a wide variety of people ranging from people living in small run down homes with little to nothing, to families in Gigantic houses that seem like Castles almost. Seeing everyone'...

  Well first off I don't know Cameron's email so rip. One of your can forward it to him I guess. For starters I'll  tell you a little about my area and my companions  since that's something all of you asked about. Elder Tapp and Elder Jones are my companions. Elder Tapp has been out for 6 months. Here's a solid missionary but is still building up confidence. Elder Jones has been out a year and a couple months and he's the zone leader. Here's a little hard core but such is life. Teaching in a trio is hard but it makes life a lot easier for finding people on Facebook. Usually it turns into two people leading the lesson and one person kinda sits there and says just a tiny bit, but we're all competent teaching so thats nice. I'd say I'm the opposite of elder Tapp right now. I have more confidence than I do knowledge so sometimes I go barreling into a lesson and butcher it, but I do it very confidently. Elder Jones just laughs at me because sometimes ...

 

  Hello Everyone! Short Version:  MTC is over! It's sad  to say goodbye to everyone, especially the ones who weren't reassigned to Chicago, but I will not miss being on the computer all day everyday. I'm ready to go do missionary work. It's finally time to put in to practice what I've been learning and practicing these last 10 weeks. Missionaries (I'm not sure how many but some) are making their way back to the Baltic Mission. I'm excited to go to Chicago but I'm 12x (exactly) more excited for the day when I get to go to my original assignment. Hopefully sooner than later but with COVID, you honestly never know. Chicago better be ready for me because I'm coming ready to convert the entire city, gang leaders and all. Long Version:  Well to start off, these past two weeks have gone really great. For the last week, I haven't had a companion because he left for the Spokane Mission. All of the Chicago missionaries left in our MTC district had an extra...

  Good morning,   Congratulations on your call to serve! Included in this email is Elder Smith’s itinerary to the mission field, if you have any questions please feel free to reach out.   Coronavirus Guidelines:   When departing or returning home – regardless of location – we ask missionaries and their families to strictly follow established guidelines to prevent the spread of illness while at the airport or on an airplane. Families should limit the number of people picking up, dropping off, or accompanying a missionary based on local airport regulations.   Whenever missionaries are inside the airport or an airplane, they should wear a mask, avoid congregating in groups, not shake hands or hug, and obey all social distancing measures. Above all, missionaries and their families should promptly follow all instructions from airport officials or volunteers. We appreciate the cooperation of missionaries and their families as we all work to follow these important safe...