It was the week of the piggies

This has been an unusual week.  Let the picture here say it for me.  I won't mention how I did this to my toes,

but let's just say that I should be more careful taking off my pajamas. Who knew, right?  Since this was how it started, my week could only go up from there.  And so it did. Later that day, we were involved with giving a woman (just recently moved from Canada) a blessing of health.  We shared our meal with her.  She is of Estonian heritage and already speaks the language.

            

Tuesday found us trudging through the snow to help clean a missionary  apartment that was being closed.  It didn't pass the initial inspection, so the young Elders called in the expert, Õde Allred.  I came along to carry the buckets of cleaning supplies.  Our children, who were all taught how to clean, can vouch that their mother can be fussy about cleaning EVERYTHING. She had the troops marshalled and put to work. Two or three hours later, the place was shining like the top of the Chrysler Building.  We found out later that the inspection passed and the landlady was very impressed.  We have some very thankful Elders for that bit of education.

We have a sister serving here who is from Ukraine.  I got to wondering if maybe she or someone from her family might remember Ken and Tina Ray when they served in the Donetsk Mission a few years ago.  I mentioned her to the Rays and sure enough, they knew her as a child when her single mother, at the time, brought her to a Singles Conference that the Rays had organized.  In the church, the world is small.  But wait, there's more.  There is another sister serving here who is from Utah and I 

happened to notice that one of her Face Book friends was our son Caleb.    I suspected that maybe she knew Caleb when he taught at the singing entertainers camp put on by the BYU Young Ambassadors each summer.  Sure enough, he remembered her.

It is the Chinese New Year this week and there are lots of displays and colorful things showing up downtown.  Although it is the year of the pig, we still have to have a dragon, right?  There was an ice sculpture of a pig and people would pass by and press a coin into the ice.  I'm not sure why but it may have to do with hoping for good luck in the new year.  There was candy making and other activities.  

On Saturday, our mission president organized a "mission prep" conference for all mission age youth in Estonia (16-24).  Õde Allred and I were asked to give a presentation on how to recognize the influence of the Holy Ghost and receive answers to prayers.  The branch president, mission president and his counselor and the district president all spoke about preparing for, during and after a mission.  I think it went well and it got a lot of people thinking. Pizza was delivered afterwards.

Incidentally, if you are interested in reading the blog I wrote while on our first mission to Estonia, you can click the link here.