BIRTHDAY, BAKING, AND BYU

This week involved a birthday, much baking, and watching two BYU games.  What a great week.  Of course, we did a lot more than that like visit the Tretyakov Gallery, a famous museum of Russian artists. We did that on Saturday, our P-day. We met two other couples at our metro station and, in the rain, walked to the gallery.  We spent over three hours there and still didn't see it all. The art was organized by the centuries in which the artists lived and each room was filled with many paintings and sculptures. For sure it was too much to totally appreciate in one visit. Some of our favorite pieces were the paintings of Christ.  There were also several rooms of ancient icons which are intricate pieces of art done on wood. They depict the biblical scenes of Christ and the apostles. They are beautiful. It is amazing that so many of them survived the Bolshovic era when the government tried to destroy all references to religion, especially these icons.

The Piersons and the Milestrups and us.  A nice man visiting

from China volunteered to take this picture.

After our three hours of touring the art gallery, we walked, in the rain, to the lock tree bridge.  The other couples had heard about it but hadn't seen it.  We were there the first day we were in Moscow, but it was fun to return.  On the bridge are metal trees on which couples place a lock and then toss the key into the river. This is to lock their love together forever.  This is a favorite place for brides and grooms to come. On this rainy day, there were no less than 6, if not a dozen, couples on the bridge or walking toward the bridge with their wedding parties in tow.....even in the rain.

One of about a dozen lock trees on this bridge

A couple locking their love

This couple also were given doves to

hold for a photo shoot.

Being as close as we were to the Starlight diner, an American 50's type restaurant, we just had to have lunch there.....hamburgers and shakes for all except Paul who had a taco.  (Go figure?)

Try getting your mouth around this one. 

Not our order for sure.

In the now pouring rain, we walked across a nearby park to view an incredible statue which suggests an amazing message.  It depicts the abuses adults inflict on children including physical abuse, alcoholism, drugs and many more.  Pretty sobbering to think all that goes on in our world today that can negatively affect our children.

The park

The sculpture

Our fun P-day was capped off by having Chad Bonham over for dinner that night.  He is a friend of Kristina Leavitt, our daughter-in-law's sister, who is living here in Moscow.  He just happens to be in our ward.  It was so fun to get to know him.  

We had the opportunity this week to hear two wonderful talks on gospel subjects. Sunday night was the CES Devotional broadcast here in Russia.  (It takes about 3 weeks for it to be translated into Russian, just as it will General Conference.  We won't see conference until the third week of October.)  Paul downloaded the broadcast (as he will the general conference) in English and we played it upstairs in the Institute room while the Russian one was viewed downstairs in the chapel.  We had advertised the English broadcast in the International Ward where there are several young single adults from America but none of them came. Paul and I were all alone listening to the broadcast, but it didn't matter because the message from Elder Nelson was powerful. He spoke of choices and how important it is to choose right.  He said these young people were born into this world at this time for a grand purpose.  He asked some key questions like 'what kind of life will you lead, what will your priorities be in life, with whom will you choose to associate, and will you choose to follow the Lord or the things of men?'  The one question that got us thinking was 'how are you preparing for your interview with the Savior?'  Elder Nelson promised that if we chose to live on the Lord's side of the line, we will not be alone.  We will have angels to help us as well and the Holy Ghost.  His last question was 'in whom will you put your trust?' We have certainly learned to put total trust in the Lord as we serve this mission. We couldn't do half of what we are doing without his love and his guidance.

Monday afternoon, Sister Lawrence, the wife of the area president, gave a wonderful fireside for all of the missionaries.  She is an amazing scriptorian.  She spoke on the Millenium and it was amazing.  We have never heard such amazing detail about what to expect during this time when Christ will personally reign upon the earth.  She used a lot of what Brigham Young taught about the subject.  It makes us want to read his discourses.  

Elders Senhert and Stebbing.  Elder Stebbings is brand new

to the mission having arrived only couple of days before

 this picture was taken.

Later that night, two elders we didn't know needed to come to our apartment to use our computer. They needed to send a report to President Borders. They live rather close to us, so at about 8:00 they came by. Loving to spoil all missionaries, I baked chocolate chip cookies for them. They were hot out of the oven and they enjoyed them with a glass of milk.  We love getting to know the elders and sisters in our mission.





This week we didn't have a district meeting as the President called a zone training meeting.  Not having to cook a meal, we took the time to prep our lesson for Thursday night.  We loved how the spirit directed our thoughts.  By the end of the day, we knew exactly what we needed to teach and how to teach it.  It is such a blessing to be companions.  It's wonderful to study together and to decide together ways to teach the doctrines and principles outlined in the lesson.  

During the day, I decided to do some experimenting cooking some new things. Remembering my total failure doing chili a few weeks ago, I was determined to make a decent batch.  I had found some different beans at the store on Monday and crossed my fingers the whole time they were cooking, hoping they would not be bitter like the last ones.  They weren't and the chili turned out just like at home....hurray!  I also made beef strogonoff.  Everyone had told me that it was hard to find a beef that would cook up tender.  I was lucky, as the beef I bought was delightfully tender and the strogonoff was great.

I must share a wonderful example of Christ-like behavior exhibited by one of our Pathway students this week.  Wednesday night this student emailed Paul and was very vocal about wanting to change his speaking partner. Each of our students have to speak one half hour each week in English with a fellow class member.  The student this young man was assigned to is a little difficult and this student didn't want to work with him.  The next morning, Paul received another email from this student.  He had prayed about his assigned speaking partner and decided that the Lord had put them together for a reason. He felt the Lord wanted to teach him something.  He said it would be a humbling experience to learn to work with this brother and that they would be fine. This is the caliber of our young people here in Russia. We say it all the time, but we stand in awe of them.

Our institute lesson went well this week. It was fun to teach and the students seemed to be involved with us throughout the whole lesson.  We taught about our Church being built upon the foundation of Prophets and Apostles and that this foundation not only keeps the church on solid ground but, as we heed the prophet's teachings and warnings, we will be kept from being tossed to and fro in the storms of this life. We had one student come up afterward to tell us she had loved President Hinckley and has had a hard time accepting President Monson as the prophet.  She said that after feeling the spirit during our lesson, she now has a testimony of President Monson being the living prophet on the earth today. A blessing for our efforts.

This is the 3rd semester group involved in one of the

suggested activities.......... 

Institute goes from 6:45 till 8:00 and after a 5 minute break, we separate into our two Pathway classes.  A student in each of our classes was assigned to direct the learning in the gathering. Both did a great job and the learning objectives were accomplished. This is such wonderful training for these students as they not only learn, but get a chance to be a leader in the gatherings.  

..........and this is Paul's 1st semester group being taught by

their lead student for the night.

Saturday brought a birthday call to our oldest granddaughter, Charlotte.  She turned 15 and started high school this year. Charlotte told us she loves early morning seminary and feels it is the perfect way to begin her school day.  She also tried out and made the acapella choir at her school.  She is the only freshman in it but loves everything about it.  She has sung acapella harmony for years with her dad and sisters, so it's a perfect fit.  It's hard to believe she is already 15.  Wasn't it just a few years ago we were welcoming her into this world as a baby? Where does time go?

Making Saturday even better, at least for Paul, was being able to watch two BYU football games.....the replay of Friday night's game and the Utah game played a week ago.  He watched one in the comfort of our home on the Ipad. That evening we went to another couple's apartment for dinner and to watch the Utah game.  There were 10 of us there and after dinner the men retired to the TV room to watch the game and the women stayed in the living room and talked.  The game didn't turn out any differently in the replay....BYU still lost.  It was fun to listen to the groans coming from all the men watching the game as BYU made their many mistakes.

Paul's favorite place to watch the games

on our Ipad

It's a  little better set up at our friend's

apartment.  We don't even have a TV.

The dinner spread of pulled pork sandwich, green salad

and chips

Now for ..........

OUR WEEKLY SPOTLIGHT OF LIFE IN RUSSIA

These type of heaters are in each room.  There are no valves

to control the heat so, when they do turn it on, the only 

way we can adjust the amount of heat in our apartment is by

opening windows if it gets too hot. 

It turned cold this week. One day I even had to don my wool coat to go to the store. It was raining (surprise) and the wind was blowing.....a definite winter chill was in the air. The only problem about the changing weather is that our apartment is very cold and we have no control over the heat. In Russia, the city turns the heat on in different neighborhoods based on a predetermined date and not necessarily according to the temperature outside. It has been so hard to get out of bed in the mornings all week because it has been rainy outside and cold inside. On one of our cold nights, we were so looking forward to a nice warm shower before retiring. Guess what....we didn't have any hot water.  It was only lukewarm.  Not what we had wanted.  Oh well, we survived.

I had to take a picture of our 20 minutes of blue sky in two weeks. 

One of the things that is hard to find here is good sliced white bread.  We are so spoiled from the wonderful bread we could get in Heber, that we are having a hard time adjusting to what we can find here.  The white bread is okay for toast but sandwiches are out of the question.  One day this week, I decided to solve that problem so I baked bread.  Paul was thrilled.  That night we had bacon and tomato sandwiches for dinner with homemade bread.  We were in heaven.

Two of 5 loaves.

I also baked a Lemon bread and Monster bars this week,

thanks to facebook postings of recipes.

As in any big city, Moscow has its share of people begging on the street.  The other day a lady approached us and asked us something in Russian.  When we said we didn't understand, she said in English, "Give me money."  We thought it interesting she knew that one sentence in English.  Often, when we are out walking, there are people playing an instrument with their donation dish in front of them.  We don't mind helping these people out occasionally.  The other day we were out walking and came across this man.  He was playing beautiful music on his flute and even had a CD playing an accompaniment.  We gave him a few rubles.

Notice the umbrella to protect him from the rain.  He was prepared

 for all  weather conditions

THE END OF ANOTHER GREAT WEEK