Reading Begins!

It's been a while since anyone has written on here to update you all! So much has been going on with camp ending, traveling different places, and starting up our reading sessions, that I think it has slipped our minds. Just to update a little bit of what happened since camp, last I wrote was during camp and our experience there, and I can tell you that the rest of that week was amazing! We all made so many great friends and made tons of memories that are going to last a very long time!
Saturday, the day after camp, we went with Peter and Chelsey's YoungFriends team down to the city of Tartu, which is about a two and a half hour drive south of Tallinn, to visit friends and the church, as well as tour around the beautiful city! Compared to Tallinn, Tartu is a much smaller, quieter city, and reminds me more of a stereotypical European city than Tallinn does. Dayna and I stayed in Tartu Saturday night and Sunday night (the youth team left Saturday evening), and after only being there for such a short time, I could see why she loves the city so much. Her LST project last year was in Tartu, so she has a special place in her heart for there, and I was noticing myself to start feeling a special attachment to it too - and after only being there for two days! There's just something about it that's hard to explain, but it somehow feels more comfortable and more like home. Maybe that's just because of the friends that we got to spend time with while being there, but I think it has something to do with the city too. Saturday we spent the day walking around the city with the teens and some friends from the church, and saw all the beautiful sights and antique buildings. It's amazing how such a simple thing as walking and looking at things with friends can be so special, and you can make so many memories by touring a new place together with them. There are many other things I could say about our stay in Tartu, but im going to limit myself because this post is about our reading sessions :)
Last week was our free week before starting LST, so we spent that time with friends in Tallinn, getting to know them better and hanging out with them, as well as spending time with the YoungFriends team. It was good for us I think, so that we could have some time to recuperate and catch up from camp before starting LST, and have some real time to spend with friends and be free to help out with the YoungFriends team on their project if they needed us. At the end of our free week, on Friday, the YoungFriends team and Dayna and I got on a bus headed for the city of Rackvere for the wedding of Everett and Kaidi. Dayna and I were invited to the wedding because Dayna is good friends with Everett who went on LST with her last year, and the youth team came to tour the famous 1300's castle there, which is actually where the wedding was being held also. We spent the afternoon going around the castle and seeing all the cool medieval things, then Dayna and I went to the wedding. It was a very unique wedding, I have never been to one like that before, but it was very cool to see how they did it! Almost right after, we had to walk back to the bus station to catch our bus so we could make the 6:30 showing of Harry Potter on opening night! Peter bought tickets sometime the week before, so we were all prepared and very excited to finally see the end of this amazing series. And it did not disappoint! Everyone was very pleased and impressed with the movie. Anyways the next day, Saturday, Andrea's YoungFriends team from Tartu came to stay at the church because their flight was leaving early the next morning, so we spent some of the day with them touring Old Town, and also tried to do some more catching up in our journals and preparing for the information meeting the next day.
Sunday marked our first day of our LST project. It was the first time the 3 of us were all together, without other teams around us, or other people making our planning difficult - the first time we were actually on our own, because everyone else had left and gone home. It felt a little bit weird, but so great at the same time, because of all the anticipation that was surrounded around this team of us 3 girls, and it was finally beginning. Until then we didn't really feel like a team to me, because there were so many others around, and Andrea wasn't with us, but now we're in Tallinn, just us 3 Canadians, ready to start LST together!
The information meeting on Sunday went really well! I had 7 readers, Dayna had 6 I think, and because Andrea has been here many times and has lots of friends, she had a few more, maybe around 10. The meeting was straightforward and seemed to go really fast, and my nerves that had been building up all day went away pretty quickly after the meeting started.
Monday morning, our first day of reading, I was a little bit of a nervous wreck on the inside. I concealed it well, but I was very anxious about meeting all the readers and weather or not it would go well or I would do a good job, blah blah blah. Which is understandable, I think! Today is Wednesday, and we've had two full days of reading now, and i'm starting to feel a lot better about the sessions. I'm learning so much about my readers, and becoming more confident in myself, and it's amazing how conversations of faith can just pop up out of nowhere, and I can learn what kind of people these readers are, and what kinds of beliefs they have etc. It's such a great way to meet people and connect with them, and share my faith also. I'm feeling more bold and confident than I think I ever have! Once we've been reading for a little bit more, i'll introduce my readers to you and tell you about them :) Andrea and Dayna seem to be doing very well too from what we've talked about, but maybe i'll leave it up to them to tell you about their experiences with LST so far! I think that's all for now...sorry if my thoughts are a little jumbled and all over the place, I just thought some people might want to know more about what we've being doing here in this beautiful land of Estonia! Love love <3
Bethany