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