Day Thirteen: Tour #3

Today's tour was of the Rundale palace. It was about an hour from Riga. It was very old, but has been renovated and restored in over the past 40 years. There was a beautiful garden right outside the palace...Pictures are on Facebook, its a must see!
On the bus ride to hotel, we sang Kingdom songs with some of the Latvian friends...It was special :)

This evening we met up with some of the Latvian friends here in Riga, and did some more sightseeing! We also met a couple visiting from Finland! The sister, Dace, is actually in the 2007 Lativa Yearbook. How cool is that!! We also met the brothers that were on yesterday's drama. They were from Estonia.
Tomorrow will be our last day here in Latvia. We are taking another tour and plan to go to the beach again. I can't believe it's already coming to an end... This has been a very special experience, and beautiful to meet friends from around the world. There's nothing like Jehovah's organization!

Day Twelve: Convention Goodbyes

As some of you know, today was our last day of convention with the friends here in Riga, Latvia. Beautiful program, enjoyed everything about it...good reminders and memories I will cherish forever.
We met up with some friends tonight, grabbed a bite and walked around Old Town in Riga - it is absolutely gorgeous! We will be having a more detailed tour of it this Tuesday.
Tomorrow we have planned to tour Rundale. It is a palace!

Day Eleven: Spiritual Banquet Continues!

Second day of convention was just as good as the first! Today we had the sound drama, and there was a new release as well... :)
This evening, a Latvian sister named Santa, joined us for dinner at Lido. Afterwards we went to a nearby park and studied Sunday's Wt together. It was literally 9:30pm and looked like 6pm outside! Afterwards, we offered to walk her home. She lives in Riga.
So far, this has been such a wonderful experience overall. Tomorrow will be the last day of convention, so sad! We're here till Wednesday, but I almost feel comfortable enough to stay behind :p
How good and pleasant it is for us brothers to dwell in unity though!!

Day Ten: Special Convention has arrived!

As we arrived this morning at the convention, some of the Latvian friends were welcoming us at the door. It was cute!
There are two arenas. In one of them, are the Latvians, and in the other, Russian. Today we sat with the Russians, but tomorrow we are switiching to the Latvian side! Either side, you can catch the translation in English on 95.7 fm. The first day was awesome! Brother Morris gave our concluding talk. Some great releases today as well! Won't say because I know a lot of you still haven't gone to yours yet :) Drama was excellent too.
Loved today!

Day Nine: Tour #2 & Evening Gathering

Today's open-air Museum was about Latvia's past history, how the common people lived. We even saw a Dutch Windmill! It was Dutch because they were the ones whom invented it...
We had a traditional Latvian lunch, it consisted of potatoes with bacon, beat soup and a sweet pastry that had some pumpkin in it... really good! Also tried this drink called Kvasa. It's like a non-alcoholic malt drink, very common here.
The evening gathering was beautiful, but will not be able to speak about it till Tuesday. The brothers instructed us not to until all the delegates have attended the gathering.
Tomorrow is our district convention in Riga, Latvia!!! It has finally arrived :) Can't wait...

Day Eight: Castles of Sigulda

We went on our first full day tour today, it was to the Castle of Sigulda, which was very historic!

Tomorrow we have planned to go on our second tour, The Ethnographic Open-air Museum.

Later that evening, we have our evening gathering, which I hear is amazing! It was designed for the delegates by the friends here :)

Day Seven: Bethel/Assembly Hall & Field Ministry

This morning, we came down to the hotel's cafetaria for breakfast at around 7am. Afterwards, we walked to catch the Tram to Bethel here in Riga. It was about 15 minutes of a ride.

We arrived at Bethel about 15 minutes early for the self-guided tour. Their parking lot is gated, but I assumed they saw us, and opened the gate! One of the brother's was able to open the door for us to the main lobby, as we waited for other brothers and sisters to arrive. The Bethelites were impressed and told us how eager we were to arrive early- we were ready to go! We did the tour, met some of our brothers, and got to learn a little bit about the history of our Latvian brothers. All so fascinsting! Check out the pictures on Facebook :)

After finishing our tour at Bethel, one of the brother's there was planning on going to the Assembly Hall in meeting for field service, so he offered to take us!

It was nice to be able to tour the Assembly Hall in Riga because they will be selling the property in just a few months. They will be renting halls nearby instead for the friends.

Also, the Latvia branch is relocating to Finland very soon as well.

As we finished our tour at the Assembly Hall, I noticed an older brother sitting down that reminded me so much of Brother Morris from the Governing Body. I whispered over to my aunt, "doesn't he look like Brother Morris?" Lei took a quick glance, and sure enough, it was him! So we approached the brother and said our hellos :)

We then took a cab back to the hotel. We arrived back at about 12pm, and in half an hour, we needed to meet back downstairs to take our bus to the Hall for field service! From our hotel alone, we had two buses to pick up the brothers who had prearranged plans for field service today! As we arrived to the Hall, the brothers on the platform gave us a few brief presentations in Russian and Latvian. Our groups were divided and off we go!

My group did informal witnessing, and I got to give my presentation in Latvian a few times, which was exciting!!

It was a great experience and joy to share in distributing the invitations for the convention with our Russian/Latvian brothers and sisters!

After the ministry, the bus took us back to our hotel. We decided to take a nap, which ended up being a two hour one ;) ... Then we woke up to get a bite. We went to Lido restaurant again...best place everrr.

Tomorrow we are beginning our tours! We will be be taking an 8 hour tour of The Castle of Sigulda. Been hearing its really cool!

Thought I should share this... Sometimes in the middle of day, after returning to our room briefly, I'll take a nap, and end up forgetting to remove my lapel badge. It's not really bent, but not at straight as it used to be anymore, lol.

Day Six: Riga Market

Today we spent most of our day at the Central Market here in Riga. There was such great and reasonably priced things!

For dinner, we went to this Latvian food restaurant called Lido. So many of the friends we've met so far have ranted how delicious and reasonably priced it is...It seriously was like our highlight of the day! It's more like a buffet, but you tell them what you would like, and they serve it for you on your plate. There is so much food there that I wanted to try, but my stomach can only hold so much! So we definitely plan on going to this place a couple more times before we leave so we can try their other dishes. :)

We met friends from Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Las Vegas, Sweden... It was so awesome!

Tomorrow we have an eventful day planned... We are touring Bethel and the Assembly Hall here in Riga in the morning. For the afternoon, we are working in the ministry with the Latvian friends!

Can't wait !!

Day Five: Interchange of Encouragement

At 1pm this afternoon, we met with some of the friends in the lobby to take the Tram  (an electrical rail motor bus) together in going to meeting.

From the hotel, we walked about 15 minutes to pick up the #11 tram, which directly took us to the Kingdom Hall. These Trams are neato... Kind of reminded me of a train, but it then looked like a bus on the exterior.

Once we got to the Hall, the friends from the Russian congregation were just coming out of meeting, so we got to meet a few of them.

The opening song sounded beautiful. Hearing all the friends singing together, in different langauges, made me get emotional! For the public talk, the brothers gave it in Latvian, but we also had it translated in English, so we got to here it in both langauges!

For the WatchTower study, the brother gave it in both Latvian and English. What was really cool, we had some of the friends comment in different languages other than Latvian! We had English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, French... and I gave a comment in Romanian, and translated it in English afterwards! We also had a sister visiting from Hawaii there today!

We were planning on going in the ministry afterwards , but there was such a big group, and not enough of the Latvian friends! Plus, the brothers organized this week for service with the delegates already (we have Tuesday afternoon set), and the territory is all planned out as well. After meeting, we just took the Tram back to the hotel, and got a bite to eat. We actually ate japanese food tonight... Hehe, which was really good, but every other day, we've had Latvian food ;) Before leaving, we gave our waiter (was Latvian) an invitation to the convention!

After dinner tonight, we went to the mall nearby our hotel. We were just there briefly yesterday in passing by, and this one man from this electronic store asks Lei and I as he pointed to our badges, "Are you Christian? Do you belong to a church?" We answered, "Yes, We're Jehovah's Witnesses!" He says, "I am religious too, I go to church"

We invited him to the convention, but didn't have an invitation with us yesterday since today was our first day attending the Hall. So we stopped by the electronic store today, he was there, and was able to leave him the invitation in Latvian :) We also directed him to the website as well. His name is Robert, hopefully he can make it to the convention this upcoming weekend!!

Great day overall. We are such a united brotherhood. Love it :)

Day Four: Jurmala Beach

Today we took the train to Majori and from there it took us to Jurmala beach, which was beautiful. The train ride was about half an hour from our hotel. My first time to experience the Baltic Sea!

At all times, we are wearing our convention badges, and so this has been really neat because we are beginning to pass by more and more of the friends that were also invited to the Special Convention here in Riga, Latvia!
Tomorrow we are catching the meeting at 2pm, which is near the branch here in Riga. We plan to share in the ministry right afterwards, so we are all very excited!!
Pictures are already posted on facebook from today!

Day Three: Streets of Riga

After having breakfast this morning, we left to roam the streets of Riga. Pictures already up on Facebook, more on the way from Lei and tia Connie's camera!)

We past by this gorgeous park, and as we were on the bridge taking photos, a lady approaches me and asks, "can you take a picture of me from my camera?" So I took her photo. In taking it, she recognized we spoke Spanish, and makes mention how delighted she was to meet people that speak it! She's Mexican, and will be returning back home soon. She actually came to Europe all by herself for a month. Her attitude was, if you have the circumstances to, then why not! We can't always wait on our friends. So I came alone. That was so admirable and brave of her! So my aunt had a Spanish tract in her purse, and as she handed it, the lady hugs her...crying. She says her mom in Mexico is a witness, and believes that this is a sign for her to visit the Hall. It was a beautiful experience :) We took a picture with her from a different camera. Will be up soon!

We also came across a lot of amber jewelry on the streets and even in-store, it's all so beautiful. Amber is very common in Latvia. As we were walking along the cobblestoned streets, two sisters approached us and gave us a big hug. They were distributing invitations for the convention, which is next weekend, and noticed we were sisters from our lapel badges! In saying our goodbyes to these sisters, we went to grab a bite at this Latvian/Russian place called Palmeni. As we got there, a few minutes later, met four other sisters! The two sisters we met previously on the street told these ones we met at Palmeni that we were going to eat there. So we all got to sit and eat together!

Before I forget to say, let me share with you a mistake of mine, haha. Yesterday, I blew a fuse in our bathroom by connecting an appliance of mine to the adaptor. My appliance was 120vac, just a set number. Being that it didn't have a range, you would need to buy an additional adaptor that will transmit to meet within the range... So thanks to my lack of understanding, we did not have light in our bathroom last night, especially since the electrician was not on duty till 8:30am the next morning!! After breakfast today, the electrician came in our room, turned a switch and bam, light in bathroom.

So always check the voltage on your appliances before plugging it in the adaptor when you're in Europe. Make sure it is ranged without exceeding the amount recommended! :)

After roaming Riga, we took a cab back to hotel due to the light rain and was about 60 degrees. Neither of us wanted to get sick! Lei and I took a nap as we returned as tia Connie went to get a massage at the spa downstairs in our lobby.

Beach tomorrow... :)

Latvia trip begins! Day One: Plane ride. ...Are we there yet?!

Not quite! Still have a long ways to go till we make our first stop in Copenhagen, Denmark. We're about 3 hours ahead of eastern time now. Which explains why I am tired! Will be a 7 hour time difference once we're in Latvia! Was able to dose off a bit here and there, which has been nice.

Before departing Newark airport earlier today, every seat in front of each passenger has a tv screen, and there's an exterior camera outside of the plane which allowed us to see the plane take off! (I have a picture I took of it) Almost felt as if you were in the driver's seat or a scene in a movie... How cool is that?!

Tonight's dinner was delish. I over heard that they served us Danish food. It was chicken glazed in some awesomeness with rice, piece of cheese with sesame crackers, a black/red beany corn salad (up my alley) , and for dessert, it reminded me of cheesecake, but also like angel food cake too, with chocolate on top. I had a cup of black tea too. I am so not missing breakfast, lol...

The plane inside is huge, too. Never have I been in one that has three columns and two aisles on each side! I'm sitting in the middle column.

Lei has been having a really interesting conversation with someone that has questions about our beliefs...go Lei!!

I will update when we're in Copenhagen! :)

Day Two: Copenhagen Landing.
We arrived this Thursday morning at 8am, (2am back home). Our connecting flight to Riga, Latvia departs at 10:50am. We are at the gate now, awaiting to board... In the meantime, after getting off our plane earlier this morning, we walked around Copenhagen's airport, got a bite/coffee at this cafe'

called, Lagkagehuset. It was really good! Before pouring milk into my coffee, I noticed the entire carton was written in Danish...
~ Boarding! Final destination: Riga, Latvia