Pärnu Vanematega

Pärnu! How I love this place! I spent the last 6 months of the mission in this amazing little city. It is situated right on the Baltic Sea and it so incredibly beautiful! The people are wonderful and amazing too and it only took about a day for me to realize that I was going to LOVE my last 6 months there.

My parents were with us here for the first 4 nights were stayed here, then they had to leave to go home. So this is our post with the adventures we had with my parents. Our last few days here will come next.

We left Tartu later in the afternoon on Thursday, August 12th and headed for Pärnudiis (or paradise, as many of the missionaries called it).

Our first adventure on the Pärnu soil took us straight to the beach. This is where my companions and I would go running every morning that the weather wasn't being ridiculous. It was not always easy to wake up at 6:30am every morning, but running on the beach was something I always enjoyed doing.

Spencer and I on the beach

My dad and Spencer had to try out Pärnu's version of a see-saw - isn't this thing great!? They would NEVER put this is approve this as something safe to put in a public place in the states. It would definitely be too dangerous. Sad - that all the "dangerous" toys are the funnest ones.

We then went to dinner at the missionaries' favorite restuarant - Stefani's. Their pizza is incredible and it was so fun to be back there again.

The next day we spent the morning at the market that had sprung up on the main street in Pärnu. They had so many fun things to buy and we took quite a bit of time shopping around, trying to find the most perfect thing for each of the kids who got left at home.

It was especially hard to find something for the boys. Here my mom is contemplating wool socks...

The girls were easy - they all got this awesome jewelry with Baltic Amber in it.
The wool socks idea was nixed - but my dad thought this blacksmith stuff was awesome.

This guy was letting the kids make their own nails here.

All the really cool stuff cost about an arm and a leg at the blacksmith shop though... :( So the boys ended up with candy - edibles are always a good backup plan!

We still had fun shopping though!

After our shopping trips and enjoying our time in all the touristy sights of Pärnu, we got to go to the branch family night! I was so excited to see everyone again and to be a part of family night! The games were all so much fun and it was great to get to talk with the missionaries and hear how everything in the area is going now.

Going to FHE was also a great thing because I was able to give our Estonian phone number to the members so we could set up some times to visit with them all. It was perfect! Saturday we then got to make a visit to Sister Ülle Pruel's house. It was so much fun to see her again (as she did not come to FHE, but received my phone number from someone who had) and to have my parents and Spencer meet her. She understands English, so we were all able to talk as long as I translated her Estonian for everyone else because she won't speak English.

We then had a dinner date at the Lastsenko residents. Vilma Lastsenko and her son Tarmo fed us til we were about to drop. Vilma's other son, Indrek, was out with the missionaries so he had to miss out. I loved eating all the Estonian food again! We had potato salad, meat pastries, chicken schnitzel, bread, beans, like 4 different desserts - it was heaven!
After this filling dinner and time talking with everyone, we headed out on a drive to an outside little town called Audru, where we spent some time working when I was a missionary. There are a couple members that live out there and it also has some very beautiful area that I wanted my family to see.

Here's part of Audru. This is my favorite bridge in Estonia! Not sure why, it just is.
The next was Sunday!!! Anyone who hadn't come to FHE that I wanted to see while there in Pärnu, I was hoping I would see at church - so I was pretty excited. To my surprise (with only a couple exceptions) I wasn't much disappointed.

The members there are so wonderful and so much fun to be with. We got to church - I was asked to speak AND say the closing prayer, my mom was asked to lead the music and Spencer was asked to play the piano. Boy do they know how to utilize the resources they have when they're available.

Here's some pictures after church of some of the branch members. I love them so much!

My parents had to leave Estonia the next day, so after church and dinner was all over we wanted to make sure there wasn't anything we'd missed as far as things to see. We decided to go a walk through a park and down to the beach. We found this wall of rocks that separates the sea from the river that flows through Pärnu into the sea. I had seen pictures of it before, but never been here. I was so excited and we all made it our goal to walk all the way to the end of the wall of rocks.

We didn't quite realize how far out it really went. This picture is looking back to land at maybe the halfway point.
This is looking out the "end" - We couldn't even really see it yet!
It took us a good 30 to 40 minutes to walk all the way out there - and with only a couple falls along the way we made it!
It was so beautiful out there and I loved seeing the sunset and the sailboats there in the background.
My dad really went out on the edge here
Spencer and Dad
This is me and the view of the walk back the was awaiting us.
Spencer and the sailboats.

I love it here! It's so beautiful! The sun literally sets here for hours. It's gorgeous!

We were feeling pretty artistic. Cool huh?
Anyway - our adventure on the rocks was the end of our Sunday evening and Monday morning, as we got everything packed up and ready to go, we had just enough time to take my parents out to Paikuse (another area outside of Pärnu that we worked in). I taught a wonderful lady there who didn't show up to church and I really wanted to see her. Her name is Ülle Tilk. She was baptized just a week or two after I left and when she didn't come to church I knew I had to track her down and see her again. By an amazing stroke of providence (because I wasn't positively sure which building she lived in) we ran into her as I walked into one of the doorways. This was the last person that I really wanted my parents to meet - and even though we only had enough time to set up a visit with her after my parents had gone, I was so grateful to have found her and gotten her phone number, along with introduce her to my parents before they left. It was a true miracle!

It was sad to see my parents go, but how grateful I am that they got to experience at least part of this wonderful place. It was so wonderful having them there and I only hope they were able to enjoy it as much as I did.