October 2010

Hey Guys!

I'm now currently serving in the city of Klaipeda, Lithuania.(out west on the coast of the Baltic Sea) It was a little shocking and I wasn’t really ready to move from Kaunas, but now I'm serving with an Elder Rich (Boise, ID) who is in his second transfer out. I found out that one of the first assignments as a DL here in Klaipeda was to organize and assign talks for sacrament meetings. So one Thursday night I called people to speak on the Sunday I got back from the training meetings in Riga, Latvia. While I was in branch council I received a call from one of the members I had called to speak for that Sunday saying they couldn’t make it. That was about 15 mins before the meeting started. Needless to say I had to talk for 15 mins without any prep., talk about stress! Anyways, luckily it worked and I made it through. I think they got the jest of it. haha. Things are going well and the work seems a little slower here. The branch is a mixture of Lithuanian and Russian speaking members so the meetings are translated into Russian. But it'll be fun. Friday night we were out and about and Elder Whicker, my mtc comp and his companion called and said he had come across a less active that wanted to meet me. I thought that she was ready to come back. When we got there we found out she had her records removed and wanted to talk to us about her new religion. Talk about an awkward hour haha. She was very nice though and made us hot cocoa; a very nice lady with good intentions.

It was a crazy time in Riga as all of the leaders in the mission met for 3 days. It was great to meet a lot of cool elders from the two other countries (Estonia and Latvia) and it was just a fun opportunity being up there. The next day after I got back was pretty nuts. That night as we cracked the code of this dome (apartment bldg) and began to knock... We ran into this huge guy; “body builder bob” haha and he was pretty ticked we were there! He told us to leave before he called the cops and then he started walking towards us with his angry eyes and muscles flexed. haha It didn’t take us long to get into the elevator :). We then got into another building and on the last floor, last door we found a way cool guy that we were able to talk with and he said we could meet the next day after English class. It was pretty sweet.

This last week was the most eventful week ever as we were able to find and teach a couple of good lessons with some way cool people. They were nice and good to talk to and practice teaching if anything. Last week, I was able to go back to Kaunas for an exchange with the new ZL. It was fun to go to my old friend, Bro. Mykolas's house (the oldest church member in Lithuania) for the weekly lunch again. No Vodka Chocolates this time. haha I really miss Kaunas a lot. We have a General Authority coming to our next zone conference. Elder Schweitzer. So that will be pretty sweet. This last Saturday night, Halloween eve, we had a little activity with the branch. We cooked handmade tacos for the members and carved pumpkins. It was really fun and just nice to relax and chill out with the branch. The youth here are pretty cool. Instead of Halloween, they have a holiday; "all saints day". They mourn the loss of the dead so a lot of places are shutdown today, but luckily we found a good place that was still open. Next week is our Lithuanian District Conference so that will be fun to be able to see all the members in Lithuania. We were able to go to the beach :) this p-day but don’t worry, it is getting very cold as the winds off of the Baltic Sea bring rain and a lot of cold air. Winter is coming and the days are getting way short…its pitch black at 5:00pm. Stay obedient and humble. Keep working hard, oh yeah, and welcome to the new missionaries
Elder Jeffrey John Manning
The Baltic Mission