Estonia Zone Conference . . . in Latvia?  
We had our zone conference in the Riga chapel.  That meant shipping all missionaries in Estonia on a 4.5 hour bus trip to Latvia the day before. 

The young missionaries stay with Latvian based missionaries and Õde Allred and I stayed at the Gertrude Hotel that sits right behind the chapel on the next block (we stayed here on our last night in the mission back in 2017).  Elder Golden from the area presidency, came to visit.  He invited a few to bear short testimonies.

Our Tallinn sisters were great to share.  Afterwards, we eat a catered meal (Chinese in a box) with fruit and honey cake on the side.  Yum.

Sisters Durfee, Smith-Driggs and Tullis reunite for one last time before Durfee and Tullis return home this week.


Every week we try to plan a district contacting activity.  It is usually in an area where lots of people will be walking by.  This week was at Tammsaare Park.  The sky was clear and the sun was shining, so that can mean only one thing this time of year -- cold, very, very cold.  Here are a few pics of the activity.

Elders Mosher & McQuivey

Sister Goodell talking it up

Sisters Smith-Driggs & Mishchenko

One of the things that the young missionaries do here is to help with activities for the youth.  Here we have Elder Rau with some youth from the branch making alfredo chicken pizza in our kitchen.  It was really good.

The sisters are good at meeting many people on the street or on the bus and they gather into the gospel net "fish of all kinds".  They met a woman at her pasta shop who is Vietnamese.  Her English was limited, so the sisters arranged for her to be taught her first lesson via Skype with sister missionaries serving in Vietnam.  How cool is that?

Sisters Goodell & Smith-Driggs assist an investigator using Skype

This year, 2019, is the year when the national song and dance festival will be held (this is the BIG one that is only held every five years and will be the first week of July).  We went Saturday night to scout out the Tallinna Lauluväljak (Tallinn Song Festival Grounds) for our upcoming Monday activity as some of the missionaries had never been there.  We went at night and took this picture.  This is like sacred ground for Estonians, especially LDS Estonians.  It was here in 1990, that Elder Russell M. Nelson, dedicated the land for the preaching of the gospel.  Little did anyone here know that the very next year they would be free from the Soviet Union and would be able to reestablish their independence.  I've read that the shell holds 15,000 people and the grounds can hold 100,000.  Hearing the music that comes from that many singers is thrilling and breathtaking. The songs of Estonia are both patriotic and cultural in nature.  There is a great national pride in their music.  We don't even know what the words mean, but they fill our eyes with tears.

Snow-covered for now, but will be green and lush by July.  Downtown in the background