GUESS WHO CAME TO ESTONIA??!!

FAMILY AND FRIENDS!

Oh how I love and miss you all. I pray for you every day!

The Work:

• Elder Uchtdorf (a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, one of our dear Church leaders), and his wife, Sister Uchtdorf, came to Estonia this weekend!! Members and nonmembers from all the Baltic States gathered in Tallinn to hear them both speak. It was incredible. My dear friends from the branch got answers to their questions, and it was a life changing experience for many. After Elder and Sister Uchtdorf spoke to all the members, they held a special conference JUST for the missionaries in Estonia!! There are only 6 sister missionaries here and about 10 elders, so it was a very personalized, small meeting. I was sitting right across from Elder Uchtdorf, and we exchanged many smiles as we sang and talked. So so amazing!! I know that Elder Uchtdorf is an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. His smile reminds me of what I think the Savior’s smile looks like :)

• Onto other miracles for the week...the woman I talked about last week who has had an extremely hard life wants to get baptized on June 2! So we are starting to teach her and help her reach that goal. It has been incredible to see her whole demeanor change over the course of these two weeks. She is happier and gentler and simply has a new light in her eyes that is incredible to witness. I can’t wait to watch that light continue to grow! PLUS, she is bringing SO MANY OF HER FRIENDS TO CHURCH!!!! This week, one of her friends said she wants to get baptized as well! The Lord’s work is HASTENING, family and friends. I am honored to be a part of his work. 

• Last week, I mentioned a family of a member that we are starting to grow a relationship with. Another miracle happened with them this week! We went over to talk to her mom.  Her 17-year-old brother was outside with his friends, and when we came over, he CAME INSIDE and sat at the table to participate in our discussion. A 17-year-old boy!! And he asked us questions and participated and read along in the Book of Mormon with us and even committed to pray about the Book of Mormon to find out if it is true. Amazing. And all of this was over herbal tea, donuts, and cheese. :) THEN, we sang in church again this Sunday, but this time that same member whose family is interested sang with us! Her family couldn’t come to church to watch the performance, but we invited her to sing it to her mom when she got home. (We sang, "Families Can Be Together Forever.") And guess what?? She not only sang it to her mom...she sang it to her whole family, then shared a scripture in the Book of Mormon about the plan of salvation, and her mom said it all made sense, and they discussed it together!! God is a god of miracles!!

• Quick crazy story about God’s timing...we were walking, and we both saw a woman and felt at the same time that we needed to talk to her. We started talking with her, and she was lovely! We asked about her religious background, and she said, "Well, I have been atheist all my life, but this last week I felt like I should start looking into God again for some reason...so now I am looking." (!!!!!!!!) We told her that we had actually both felt like we needed to talk to her, and we knew God had placed us together. She was so surprised and so happy about it all. Unfortunately, she lives outside of our area...BUT, we are trying to figure out if we can Skype with her in order to teach her. It was such an amazing miracle!

• CRAZIEST lesson in Tallinn on Friday (I was in Tallinn on a companion exchange with Sister Godwin)...we were with two elders teaching a woman that was around 60 years old. Long story short, she had a seizure during the lesson. Sister Godwin almost called the ambulance, but then the woman was OK...it was crazy. Somehow we still managed to teach her that she is God’s beautiful daughter, and I invited her to say to herself every day, "Ma olen jumala ilus tütar. Ta armastab mind. Ma armastan teda," meaning: “I am God’s beautiful daughter. He loves me. I love him." Friends, this is what I say to myself out loud every day, and I believe it wholeheartedly. The more I say it, the more I feel it. I mentioned the exercise of saying this phrase every day in an email a few weeks ago, and invited you all to say that to yourself every day as well! If you have been doing that, please write me and tell me how it has been going! That single phrase has changed my life as well as the lives of so many here in Pärnu. I can’t wait to see how it changes your life :)

The Culture:

• Estonians sometimes use ski poles as walking sticks!

• They sell milk in bags here as well as cartons.

• Calling most Estonians "nature lovers" would be an understatement. The way many people say they "find God" or "talk with God" is by going on nature walks! Luckily, we get to benefit from these nature walks because the trails in the forest are STUNNING for morning runs!

         

The Funnies: 

• We are teaching someone with a pet squirrel...don’t ask haha.

• I was talking with a wonderful woman on a bus in Tallinn, and we started talking about God a little bit. She started pulling stuff out of her purse, but we just kept talking...long story short, she was rolling a joint! Hahahah I don’t know why I thought that was so funny...but I was chuckling about it for a while...

• “The Vikings deserve Jesus Christ too." - Sister Beardall (another sister serving here)

Spiritual Thought:

One of my favorite things that Elder Uchtdorf talked about was "the gospel core." In other words, what the gospel is and what is expected of us as followers of Jesus Christ. Very simply, he said the gospel core is: 

1. Follow the commandments. 
2. Trust in God. 

It’s that simple! And if we remember the Savior’s sacrifice and are truly grateful for it, there becomes an even greater reason to live this gospel core. 

As I have lived this "core," (aka as I have done my very best each day to follow God’s commandments and trust completely in God), I have seen blessings pour into my life. And I am genuinely joyful!! Many have asked me, "Why are you so happy all the time?"  Friends, my answer is simple. I follow God’s commandments, and I trust and love God! :) 

My invitation for you all this week is to read Elder Uchtdorf’s talk, "Lift where you stand." He talked about it when he talked to all the members here in the Baltics, and I thought to invite you all to read it as well! I am going to print it off and study it this week too, so we will be learning together, just on opposite sides of the world! :)

I love you all. I pray for you. I adore the people I work with here (my fellow missionaries, the members, nonmembers, and strangers). I am so happy. And I am so so grateful. :)

Trust in the Lord. Choose joy. Find peace. 

Õde Smith-Driggs

Proverbs 3:5-6 (my life motto!)

EVEN THE DOGS SPEAK ESTONIAN

TERE!! HELLO!!

I have been praying for you all SO HARD this week! Especially those taking final exams at university and those on missions! I hope you can feel my love and support!!

This week was pretty amazing as usual :)

The work:

• I was talking to a young girl on the bus one day and obviously mentioned God and how special she is to Him. When she got off, the young woman behind me got out of her seat and went in front of me and just said, "I am a Christian!!" We started talking and got off the bus together. Õde Tullis and I talked with her for a while about our various beliefs, etc. I pulled out the Book of Mormon and shared with her my favorite scripture from it (2 Nephi 22:2).  As soon as I finished reading and testifying about the Book of Mormon, she practically took it out of my hands! She was so excited to have the book! We talked a little bit about her life and...wow....one of the hardest lives I have ever heard of. And she is only 18 years old. Long story short, this week the elders and members and we have all been helping answer her questions and have been helping her feel how important and valued she is to Heavenly Father. And now she wants to be baptized! Super crazy how it all happened!  We are all working with her, and it will be amazing to see how it all works out. :)

• We went over to our investigator’s house to talk about the word of wisdom (one of God's laws that outlines particular drinks and foods we should and should not eat/drink). Our investigator said she had actually been thinking about how she wanted to quit some of her habits just the night before!! It was an incredible lesson. She is so excited to get baptized, and she is doing everything she can to be ready!! And we have talked to her a lot about how God immediately blesses us when we keep His commandments. She has already seen that SO MUCH! (There’s not enough time to type out all the miracles she has seen). But to mention one - she did not have a job, then only 2 hours after she committed to live the word of wisdom, she texted us saying she had a job interview for the next morning. Immediate blessing!! God IS SO GOOD.

• We went out to the "maa" (the countryside) this weekend to stack some wood from a member's family!! SO MUCH FUN. 

And the family fed us a "real" Estonian meal. It was my first "eesti moodi" meal, and it was so good. The elders and Õde Tullis were laughing at me because I thought it was so good, and they were like, "It's literally just potatoes, chicken, and fresh vegetables." Hahahah it was SO GOOD THOUGH. 

And it was kind of cold, so the family gave us jackets and scarves to wear. Õde Tullis and I looked like babushkas. We laughed so hard, it was awesome. At one point, I was crouched down over the wood, and Õde Tullis said I looked like someone who lives outside with her wood.

• We went to Riga, Latvia this week for new missionary training! So so fun to be reunited with my MTC sisters :) Also, Õde Austin, Õde Durfee, Õde Tullis and I sang hymns outside the bus station as we waited for our bus. So fun :)

Riga

• It was Õde Tullis's BIRTHDAY this week!!! I am so grateful Õde Tullis was born...I love her so much. We work so hard and have SO much fun and see SO many miracles together!! We have set health goals and are doing a great job at keeping them, but her birthday was both of our "cheat day"...I am pretty sure I’ve never had that much food and chocolate in one day...#noregrets 

Birthday celebrations for Õde Tullis:)

• I ate raw fish on rye bread this week. (You can call me a real Estonian now ;)

• We sang in church this week!! They have never had musical numbers in church...but now the Branch President has asked us to sing every week! hahahahaha 

The culture:

• Pedestrians rule the streets here! I can’t tell you how many times we have just walked out onto the street, and the cars just stop for us..super cool actually!

• The dogs speak Estonian here...we walk dogs from the animal shelter every Wednesday morning, and they only listen to us if we talk to them in Estonian. They have no idea what "Stop!" and "Slow down" mean!

The funnies:

• When we were doing introductions at English night, one of my favorite elderly members just got up and said, "I am an old man. That is all." Then the rest of the older men in the room proceeded to introduce themselves and talk about how old they were. Hahahahaa it was awesome.

• One of the elderly members walked into church yesterday with whole clumps of garlic up his nose...I will never know why lol.

• We played a game on Monday where you have to put a bunch of water in your mouth, then look at the person across from you and try not to laugh. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love to laugh, so I was so bad at it hahahaha. But Õde Tullis and I got each other SO WET!

Spiritual thought:

My desire to share the Book of Mormon has grown so much this week!! I see the Book of Mormon as an instruction manual of happiness and peace. In it, prophets write about their struggles and how they got through them with God. When I read it, I see specific strategies and ways the prophets went through life, then apply those ways of life to my own. The Book of Mormon has answers to all questions and provides a step by step process of how to feel happiness. 

To all who want a challenge this week, I invite you to think about why the Book of Mormon is important in your life, then share one Book of Mormon with someone close to you. Testify of it. I promise if you do this, your own testimony of the Book of Mormon will grow, and you will help someone else find answers to their own questions and grow their testimony!

I love you all and pray for you. Thank you for your prayers. 

Trust in the Lord. Choose joy. Find Peace.

Õde Smith-Driggs

TOO MANY MIRACLES TO COUNT

TERE!!

How are you all doing?? I pray for you all, and I can feel your prayers. Thank you for everything:) 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ÕDE TULLIS THIS FRIDAY!!!! ARMASTAN SIND, ÕDE! SA OLED NII TUBLI!!

The work:

• This was a week of miracles. We taught 10 LESSONS!! That is a big deal for this area!! There were so many of those "missionary moments" that I have always heard so much about. Last Monday, we went over to our investigator’s house with the elders so they could give her a blessing (she was really struggling).  We talked about what a priesthood blessing was, then one of the elders gave her the blessing. It was one of the most powerful blessings I have ever heard. I knew God was talking to our investigator in that very moment. At the end of the blessing, we were all silent for a while. Then our investigator just turned to us and said, "I feel like I need to be baptized." The Spirit was strong, and I was so grateful to be in that room for that moment. So grateful. Now we are working hard with her to get her prepared to be baptized on May 5 :)

• Another "missionary moment" this week happened the next day! We were in an area to visit someone, but it turned out we actually couldn’t visit her. But we knew God had led us to that area for a reason, so we prayed and followed where the Spirit told us to walk. Only minutes later, we started talking to an older man sweeping outside his house. Long story short, he already had a Book of Mormon and had met with missionaries before and everything! He let us in the gate, brought us out stools, and we sat on his porch and showed him how to pray. It was incredible! He gave us matches as Easter presents :)

• We went to Tartu this week!! We had to pick up Õde Tullis's living permit. It was so fun to reunite with Õde Austin and see Õde Durfee again as well!!

Tartu

• We visited a recently re-activated member’s house yesterday. Her mom greeted us as well and sat us down for some herbal tea. We talked for a long time about her family, and then she asked about Joseph Smith. That question turned into an entire discussion about the restoration of the gospel! And by the end of teaching her all about it, she said with a very determined voice, "Well, I am most definitely going to read the Book of Mormon tonight." It was so awesome!! She is so so ready!! And this was all while drinking herbal tea and having cookies and apples :) Could life get better? I think not.

• The last "missionary moment" I want to mention is when we went to an address to visit a referral. We knocked a few times, but no one answered. Õde Tullis felt inspired to knock on the door right next to it just to see if that person would be interested. When that door opened, it was our referral!! Even though she ended up not being interested, it was still amazing to see the Lord's hand in leading us to the right door we needed to knock.

The culture:

• The air almost constantly smells like a campfire here...it's so fun because I feel like I am home in the mountains!! haha

• Estonians wear their wedding rings on their right hand...fun fact for ya'll ;)

Parnu pizza

Õde Tullis and the Baltic Sea

The funnies:

• Sooooo people not only walk their dogs here, they walk their cats too. I’ve also been told they walk their bunnies (haven’t seen that yet though LOL). I was chuckling as we approached a young woman walking her cat...she actually ended up being pretty interested, so it was fun to talk to her!
• There is a member here who likes to pretend he is American...it's hilarious. He is more patriotic than all of us missionaries combined. He pretends not to speak Estonian...he only ever talks to us in English and always talks about America! But the other day, Elder Krommenhoek said the word "schmally" in front of him, and all of us pretended like it was totally a word in America. "How do you not know what schmally is?? I thought you loved America and knew everything about it!" LOL he got so frustrated hahahah he even asked Siri what it was...

Peelers make great forks when needed.

• Sometimes we bake cookies or brownies for people here in Pärnu, but this week our oven was being super weird. One night, we tried to make cookies and all the batter ended up melting in the oven, and it turned into a huge pancake of cookies...lol. I don’t know how to describe it. But that has happened a few times since to some degree, so baking has just kind of become a joke hahahah. But the cookies still taste good!! That's all that matters, right??

Spiritual thought:

We talked to a young woman on the street, and as we talked about the Book of Mormon, we testified that whenever she had a question, she could read from it and pray and she would find an answer. So we challenged her to try it..to put the Book of Mormon to the test, so to say! :) She took the book and said she would try.

My invitation to you all is the same. To any of you wanting a challenge this week, I invite you to think of any question you have (ANY question...about school, moving homes, switching jobs, choosing whether or not to date someone, how to parent teenage children...ANYTHING). Once you have thought of that question, take out your Book of Mormon. Say a prayer that you will find the answer, have faith that you WILL find the answer, then simply open the book. I promise you will either feel the answer in your heart or mind, or you will read the answer in the words of the Book of Mormon. 

I tried this this morning...I know it works, friends. I found my answer.

Thank you for all your support. I love and pray for you all. More than anything, please know how much God loves you. You are a child of Heavenly Father. He loves you, and I hope you love Him. Life is hard, we all know that. But when you put your trust in Jesus Christ, your burdens become just a little bit lighter. :)

Please let me know how I can help any of you...specific prayers, specific scriptures you need, or just anything. I live to serve :) 

Trust in the Lord. Choose joy!! Find peace. 

Õde Smith-Driggs

"Know ye not that ye are in the hands of God?" Mormon 5:23 

ESTONIA - MY NEW FAVORITE PLACE ON EARTH!

TERE FAMILY AND FRIENDS!! As you can tell from my title -YES, I made it to Estonia safely, and YES, I absolutely love it here. 

I AM IN PÄRNU, ESTONIA, 

AND MY TRAINER IS ÕDE TULLIS!!! 

I love Õde Tullis!!!! We have so much in common - mainly our happiness and positivity. I know there is a reason God needs us together right now, lighting up Pärnu!! We have so many mutual friends and so many common interests...I just love her so much and feel so grateful to work with her and learn from her. I have never been more grateful and more excited to be on the Lord’s errand here in Pärnu. I love it here. I hope you all are doing well! I pray for you! Thank you for all of your prayers! I feel them!

The Work:

• Before I jump into what happened this week (which was a lot), I just thought I’d say a little bit about the work in Pärnu so you have an idea. There are about 15 members who come to church each week, and the only missionaries here are Õde Tullis and I and two elders. Most of our work consists of visiting less active members and spending time strengthening the members. Since there are so few members, we missionaries help keep the church running, so to speak. Õde Tullis and I are in the Relief Society presidency and Primary presidency, visiting teachers, teachers, etc. We get to help with a little bit of everything! I am so grateful! It’s a blast! I am not allowed to share pictures of the members, so I am sorry these emails will not have pictures of some of my friends! But I hope you still enjoy the other pictures. The work here is AMAZING, and we have already seen so much progress in the last 5 days. :)

• It is amazing to be out in the "real world" being the Lord’s missionary. Heads literally turn as we walk by. I never realized how much light we have as missionaries until I saw people staring at us and watching every move we made. It is an incredible opportunity to be here representing the Savior.

• Our first plane ride last Monday from Salt Lake City to Chicago was incredible. I sat next to a wonderful man who had actually visited Estonia before! We talked the entire plane ride about a variety of topics, but mostly about the gospel and having a relationship with God. He taught me a very important principle - it is only when you have joy in the journey that you have joy in the destination.

• The second plane ride (from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany) was even MORE of a miracle. I visited with a nice man and woman from Turkey. Long story short...we talked for hours, shared our beliefs, and had a wonderful time. :) I even had the opportunity to give the man a Book of Mormon! So grateful to have a small part in the Lord’s work!

• While I have been in Pärnu, Estonia, I have realized how grateful I am for little miracles. For example, we wanted to visit a wonderful lady, but her mean dog was in the way, and the missionaries hadn’t had a chance to get past the dog before. But we just walked in the gate with a prayer in our hearts, and we got inside her house safely! Or another example - we felt we needed to go visit one of our investigators, but she wasn’t home when we got there. We left her a note, then on our way back, we talked to a lady who we ended up teaching the entire Plan of Salvation to on the street. And we gave her a Book of Mormon! God knew we wouldn’t have been over there unless He told us to go visit our investigator...and instead of seeing our investigator, we met that wonderful lady instead. These are the kinds of miracles you can see every day if you look for them, friends!

• There are not many people on the streets sometimes here in Pärnu, so when there is someone, we jump at the opportunity to talk to them. We turned a corner on one street, then saw someone about 50 feet behind us. But it was awkward because we couldn’t just stop and wait for her to catch up then talk to her. So we awkwardly just slowed wayyyyyy down hahahaha. I was chuckling the whole time. By the time she caught up to us, we started talking, and she seemed to have a lot of potential! But one of our other young investigators ran across the street and hugged Õde Tulllis, stopping her from walking, so we couldn’t continue our conversation with the lady. We enjoyed talking to our other investigator but were a little sad we lost the other woman. But THEN - (miracles still to come, ladies and gentlemen) we walked right to the bus stop and started talking to another woman. She was so nice! We ended up getting her number and everything!! So if we hadn’t been intercepted, and if we hadn’t slowed down to talk to the first woman, we wouldn’t have been at the bus stop the same time as the woman who gave us her number. The Lord works in mysterious ways, friends. All we have to do is follow the Spirit - the personage that tells us where to go and what to do  - in order to be on the Lord’s constant errand.

• We had two lessons this week that went well! The first lesson was incredible - the woman we visited said she feels different every time we talk (a good kind of different). I felt like we needed to share with her the hymn, "Where Can I Turn For Peace?" from our hymnbook. I pulled it out in the lesson and started reading the third verse. Her young son, who had been playing loudly throughout the lesson, immediately stopped playing and stared at me. It was quiet as I read the verse. The Spirit was so strong. Then I finished, and he started playing again. But it was a special experience. The other lesson we had was also very special. The Spirit helped me understand enough that I could contribute to the lesson when I needed to. (in Estonian I mean)

• I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn this language. I can understnad what is happening about 85% of the time and am able to contribute to a conversation pretty well! I am so grateful to God for His help! I know that it is not me. I know that being able to converse with people in Estonian on a bus and in the street is truly a miracle. I absolutely love this language, and my ability to communicate is getting better every single day! I love the people here, and I love God!

The Culture:

I thought it would be fun to add a "culture" section to my emails now!

• Pärnu is FULL of babushkas. And if anyone knows me, they know how much I LOVE elderly people. So I am in heaven here in Pärnu! There are also many teenagers here but not too many of the age group in between babushkas and teenagers haha.

• Anyone under the age of 30 almost definitely speaks fluent English. So we talk in English a lot more than I thought here.

• People give us the funniest looks for saying, "Tere! Kuidas teil läheb?" to them on the street with big happy smiles. (“Hello! How are you?”) That is definitely not normal here, LOL. But the people are SO nice here. Most of them will give a surpised, "Tere, tere!" in return.

• Pärnu is an extremely. small. town. So when we talk with someone on the bus, we can expect to see them again sometime! That happened to me just yesterday! So it is especially very important to leave people feeling good when you talk to them here, because you never know when you will see them next :)

• Pärnu is full of COLOR! Every house and building is a different bright color!

The Funnies:

• Welp, I learned the first day that the voltage is different here...lol. I tried to blow dry my hair, and my hair dryer got extremely hot within 5 seconds and the fire alarm went off! Hahah so that happened...#greenie

• Remember when I said in the MTC that I sleep talk in Estonian? Well, that is still the case friends.  I had a dream the other night that we were at a bus stop, and we were teaching someone how to pray. I woke up from the dream as I was on my knees, starting to say a prayer in Estonian..."Mei kallis Taevane Isa..." Hahaha, it woke Õde Tullis up, and we both just laughed and went back to sleep.

Spiritual thought:

I have been thinking a lot about how important our identity as children of God is. When I get sad, I simply think, "I am a daughter of God, who loves me and I love Him." That simple truth has gotten me through my life. I have a simple invitation for you all, my dear friends and family. Look at yourself in the mirror every day and say out loud (even if it’s a whisper), "I am a daughter (or son) of God." Say it out loud 10 times in a row. If you do not believe that you are a son or daughter of God right now, and even if you DO know, I promise that if you do this every day, you will feel a whole lot happier. Your life will be filled with peace, and you will feel God give your soul a hug. He loves you. He is so proud of you.

And I love you. :) 

Trust in the Lord. Choose joy. Find peace.

Õde Smith-Driggs

"I Heard Him Come" Video

Added post:

If you read Sister Smith-Driggs's March 28th blog entry entitled, "The 4-Minute Miracle," you know she and her companion Sister Austin performed a new arrangement of the song, "I Heard Him Come," to bear testimony of Jesus Christ through music.  Eliza was ill and could not produce musical notes before or after performing but felt complete confidence that God would give her enough voice to sing in order to touch people's hearts at the meeting.  Some kind soul filmed the performance and sent it to us this week.  For those who want to watch, here is a link to the video:

https://youtu.be/W9TyLMNkx_0

I'll post the regular blog later today - Eliza's first post from Estonia:)