9EURO MAP

today we headed out for a trip to the beach here in Germany. the weather was terrible. just totally terrible! we got a bit lost in the rain and after taking the wrong turn we spotted, yes, a Kingdom Hall!

all was not a wash after all! ha, no pun intended!

the town we were going to visit, Kiel's, was overran with festival goers {summer boating festivities} and the rain had our spirits very dampened, but all was okay after driving by this hall. we decided to keep driving north up the coast to see what we could find and low and behold, about 25 minutes later we ran into some sunshine and a quaint, quiet fishing village!

we spent some time at the beach and had a great little roadtrip through the country, but it took seeing the Kingdom Hall for the day to improve ;)

a couple more from our day today...

lost and no working phone service other then wifi when available. had to go oldschool and buy a map! a 9euro map!!!

gorgeous countryside!

tomorrow is convention with the german family! 

love,

c+n

WITHDRAWL

{photo snapped from the shuttle when leaving riga}

sitting this morning in our family's home here in Germany and I am realizing I am in complete and utter withdrawal from latvia and our friends there!

we've loved staying connected with those closest to us back home either via this blog or through email, and it's been so encouraging to hear of great things happening also for our friends and brothers and sisters back in America! 

this trip has made us do this sort of 'shake 'n bake' jumble of our hearts, and minds. shake 'n bake is a reference to this American brand of breading {like for cooking} and it was made popular in the 60's; you put your chicken in the brown bag with the breading and shake it around so it gets coated! the slogan to the shake 'n bake was, "it's shake 'n bake, and I helped!" and it was a little girl saying this while standing next to her mom in the kitchen. it was a simple way to get seemingly inexperienced ones in the kitchen and get them involved and making something simple which of course, could lead to more!

well, I suppose you could say that we feel like we've gotten to stand in a spiritual kitchen with all our brothers and sisters and friends both back in latvia and back at home; our 'mom' or in this case our more experienced friends, the special pioneers and the bethelites and the elders and the elder's wives, well they invited is to cook with them!  so we put our little hearts and minds into that brown bag and then shook shook shook until we were thoroughly coated in a delicious, encouraging breading.  only this time we aren't saying it's 'shake 'n bake and I helped' we are saying it's 'shake 'n bake and YOU helped'.  Jehovah really has made so many great avenues for us all to get together and exchange encouragement and love, even for those that may have never seen or gotten the opportunity too. I suppose this analogy could go a few directions, and I'm sure my friend Adrianne could clarify my thoughts {she's so great at illustrations and analogies!} much better then me, but hey it's worth a try ;).

missing everyone, our old and new friends dearly! enjoying Germany! we will be going to a day of convention here on Sunday! till then...

breakfast from today! the family left us a note and some goods from the bakery since they're off to convention!

love, 

c+n

DAY SIX

bethel facilities. a great story behind these grounds which I'll expand on more later when I post my Nikon photos!!

the beautiful Kingdom Hall!

personal rooming building

common space

the kitchen and dining space... !!!

library

we got to talk to pretty much the rest of the bethelites we hadn't already met. our favorite speaker was the brother that gave the baptism talk and we got to talk to him!

Kingdom Hall inside

after going to bethel today first thing after breakfast, we had our walking tour of old riga.  at lunch we went to an old medieval restaurant, rozengrals, where there was only candle light to dawn by in the authentic setting! food was pretty good!

darker then dark in there!

pretty scenes from the first museum we stopped at; will remember the name later!

hmmm... I can't quite put into appropriate words our evening spent with guntas and janis whom live here in latvia and invited us out today, however I can just say that we had a superfluously splendid time being hosted by these two, included in which was taking us to the beach. or let me call it by it's name, the Baltic Sea.  sounds so studious no? "we went to the Baltic Sea" sounds so much better then "we went to the beach"...

siers! {that's 'cheese' in latvian :) }

this setting; 10:30pm... can you believe it?!?

in the rare chance that I would find amber in the Baltic Sea, I found amber in the Baltic Sea!

truly, I can't even say more about tonight other then we choked through goodbyes and nicholas and I got to our hotel and sobbed like babies with love for these two beautiful people we now have in our lives and for the astonishing adventure at special convention we've had! I am looking forward to writing in more detail about our accounts!

tomorrow we head to Germany for a week to visit nicks family there and *oddly enough* it's their convention while we are there so we are going to go at least a day there!

already missing our utopia here in latvia with our brothers and sisters... 

n+c

DAY FIVE

Not only did we get to sleep in today {hooray!} we got to go in service {double hooray!}

the bus picked us up at our hotel. the society has buses and shuttles set up for us to do everything! it's so helpful and considerate!

us {looking a tad nervous; and we look relatively fine but the day was rainy for a bit and super humid and we were dripping sweat something crazy...} at the kingdom hall.

this happy brother and special pioneer from Russia volunteering as a group leader. that smile!

largest meeting for field service I've ever seen! so encouraging! it was the local latvian congregation plus a group of delegates. 

we met the Russian equivalent to our dear friend mike kasselica from washington! his name was Ilya and his mannerisms, humor and laugh and voice were so much like mike!  therefore we just loved him!!!

walking to territory!

getting territory assignments and partners...

Russian tracts. we learned a simple Latvian and Russian presentation, I gave mine three times in Russian and the householders took it!

we were working in these lockout apartment buildings...

my service partner! he is 26 and in latvian sign language! I told him all about one of my best friends kelsie who is an interpreter in Seattle and he was fascinated! we had such a great time learning about each others territories and living place! and he was great at the door; could speak Russian, Latvian and English. it was encouraging to ME to have this blessing of a service experience today.

nicholas would say the same! although his service partner and son spoke NO English, the little one picked nick this flower and upon saying, or trying to say 'goodbye' they gave nick huge hugs and held their hearts with their hands... yes, just typing it makes me tear up!

everyone finishing service and visiting and exchanging goodies. can't wait to share more from the 'big' camera and all the other photos I have!!!

long story short the brothers and sisters have literally held us and begged us to learn their languages and come back... and we are honestly figuring out how to make it happen... ... ...

<3

DAY FOUR

"we love you" said a russian sister from kazakhstan this afternoon as we were leaving and after one of the most heartfelt hugs of my life. queue ugly cry. like total and complete ugly cry. I squeaked out, "we love you too."

in front of the latvian board this morning!

I am the most absolutely wonderful amount of 'good' exhausted! I can't really go into much detail of today for fear that I'll accidentally share too much, and for that matter the only other photo I'm going to share is this one of this sister ...

{iphone snap of this photo as displayed on the back of my camera from today!}

I love love loved her hair wreath!!! many of the sisters came dressed in their traditional clothes today! loved it.

I mean it; that's all!

the convention was an experience that is very, very difficult to put into words. and I have no more tears left in me so... I'm going to go to sleep... and not have to get up at 5:30am... :) but I will non-eloquently say that I adored this time so much, and am looking forward to a few days of service and tours before we leave wed.

thank you so much for hosting us latvia, we really do love you.

nicholas+cozbi

  

DAY THREE

okay so it's almost the last day of convention! can hardly believe it! we are so happy that we still have a few things planned with the brothers and sisters even after the convention is done.  we don't want any of it to end!

here's a few snaps of our day...

packed, hot bus rides. just have to embrace it!

on the hot, packed bus ride. no we didn't coordinate polka dots...

nicks long lost twin! him and his wife are so delightful; I can remember their names right now, but he does a big portion of the presentation at our evening gathering, gave a talk today, manages the travel desk, does on stage and off stage translating, his wife the same, and she had a part today. talk about a lot of volunteer responsibilities!

these sisters took pity on our box lunches and fed us! the lunches provided aren't bad! not fabulous either but you're so hungry that your take it with a smile and refuel. well these sisters decided we needed more food {our lunches are a sandwich with enough filling to cover about 1/4 of the inside, and some sort of potato-ish salad that was too warm for me to eat today, and a water}.  so the sisters pulled out an extra filet of breaded garlic chicken she made, cut us some tomatoes and cucumber and poured us some tea and made us eat it all!  and funny enough what initially caught my attention with them was that they were sharing a tea towel spread across their laps and eating with real plates and silver ware; they were too cute!

oh, and bread too. it was all so gracious and hospitable and so appreciated!

we went to a gastropub tonight for dinner in a rather hidden courtyard near our hotel and I found this arch and wreath {and fortunately timed entering biker!}

went for a walk in the park and found some peony beds nearing the end of their little lives, but sill gorgeous and still photo worthy especially during the golden hoursss...

and the view from our apt! not glamorous but I still love it!

au revoir

early to bed tonight!

DAY TWO

today was day one of convention! I am so stinking exhausted and that is SUCH an understatement! our brains are mush. between all the travel time and my lack of sleep, not to mention that at convention we watch one talk/speaker, while in the other room {latvian and russian have two seperate ooms} they are giving a seperate version being translated and are typically way ahead or behind in translating, or for that matter the translating just plane is happening. I am now so thankful for meetings in my own language!

the friends were beautiful though! meeting so many new ones!  can't wait for tomorrow! only tomorrow, I'll have a red bull, banana and some chocolate with me! ;)

oh the bus in the morning! bright and early! 

entrance to olympiskais sporta centre where convention  is!

lunch. I had some serious concerns with the warm chicken potatoe salad but was way, way to hungry not to eat it. and hey I'm still alive ;)

brother morris of the governing body giving the last talk of the day!  we got to be introduced to him and his wife through greg and joyce and we spent the majority of the lunch break all chatting! brother and sister morris are so sweet!

all done! it was 91• today with high humidity and no air conditioning in a giant tin sports arena. we died. and then came back to life in time to get hot again and get on the blazing double decker bus shuttling is back to the hotel... !!!

view from patio out front hotel where we had drinks and snacks! there was a breeze and that made life so, so much better!!!

um I'm kind of floored with the presentation of this cheese plate!

end of night sunset and moon.

ciao!

z... z... z... {already fell asleep!}

ps. these are all simply iphone photos I've snapped! incase you were wondering!