GENERAL CONFERENCE......THE HIGHLIGHT OF OUR WEEK

What a wonderful weekend we just experienced.  We watched all 5 sessions of General Conference with 50 or so of our elders and sisters.  Because of the time necessary to translate it into Russian, General Conference was broadcast a week late, October 12 and 13. Paul had downloaded all the sessions and set everything up in the institute room so we could all watch it together, in English.  President Borders felt the missionaries would get more out of the conference if they listened to it in their native language. We were grateful to watch it with them as they bring such a wonderful spirit with them where ever they are.  The messages were so powerful and came with such great counsel by which to set our lives.  We are so grateful to have a prophet of God, Thomas Monson, on earth to help us know our Father's will for us. We are grateful for his message as well as those of all the apostles.  

Between the morning and afternoon session on Sunday, Elder Ricks

invited our district to come to the kitchen for some homemade

cinnamon rolls.  He had made them from scratch the night before.

They were delicious!  We have such a great district.

Saturday late afternoon, while the men watched Priesthood, the sisters gathered in another room to watch the General Relief Society Broadcast.  Paul had set up another projector system so we could watch it on a large screen, too.  A couple of tender mercies took place to make it all possible.  We were told President Borders would bring a DVD with all the conference sessions on it recorded in English.  Paul had planned to use that DVD to show the Relief Society meeting.  During the hour break between the Saturday morning and afternoon sessions, he decided to make sure the DVD had the Relief Society meeting recorded on it.  He found out it did, but on a prompting, decided to click start and watch it for a minute.  He soon discovered it was the Russian version of the meeting.  The elders had given the president the wrong copy.  We were so grateful Paul checked out the DVD when he did as it gave him time to download the Relief Society meeting during the next two hour session. Had he checked it any later, it would not have been ready to show when it was needed.  The other tender mercy came when Paul was prompted to come back to make sure all was still okay with the women's broadcast.  Just before he come into the room something happened to the download and the screen went grey.  He was right there when he was needed to fix it. Just a loose connection but the women would not have known what to do, that's for sure.

To make the weekend perfect, we had the privilege of opening our home, Saturday night, for our two sisters to have a movie night with Nastia, their newly baptized friend.  We watched Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the Restoration.  After the movie,the sisters gave Nastia a brief lessons on the importance of having a living prophet on the earth today.  Of course, food was involved, too.....a banana cream pie to end the night.  It was a bittersweet evening as Nastia has moved.  She will no longer be in our ward, though still in Moscow.  We hope she will keep in touch with us.

The other highlight of the week was receiving news that a package had arrived for us from the United States.  We picked it up at the Central Building and couldn't wait to get it home to find out what was inside.  My sweet teacher friends from Spokane had told me they were sending three packages to us with things we couldn't get here.  We have been anticipating their arrival.  One of three...that's good for Russia.  The others will get here but one never knows exactly when.




The first thing we saw when we opened the box was a big Costco sized package of brown sugar.  YEAH!!!! Now cookies will be the right texture.

Pinto beans from America.  Now I can make decent

refried beans for Mexican dishes.

How excited we were to also find corn syrup, worcestershire sauce, and lots and lots of sandwich sized ziplock bags. (You don't realize how often you use that size bag until you don't have any.  I think I have used at least one, if not  two, everyday since they arrived,) We love the purple shopping bag, too.  It's already been put into use several times carrying all the groceries we have to buy.

Now for the week.....

Last Sunday was fast and testimony meeting.  It's alway touching to hear the testimonies born of the truthfulness of the gospel any where in the world.  After sacrament meeting, we attended the Gospel Essentials class with all the other missionaries.  The lesson was taught by Lada, the sister who was baptized only three weeks prior. (Here is Moscow, you are put to work immediately in the wards.) She did a wonderful job teaching about eternal marriage and she isn't even married.  She motivated lots of good discussion.  We were asked, by another investigator whom we have come to love, how we have been able to stay married for 48 years. (In Russia, the divorce rate is very high.)  Paul's advice was to say 'yes dear' often.  After church, we were invited to attend a meeting to help plan a ward activity. This activity is to be one where ward members can bring their non member friends and is a coordinated effort by the ward and our district missionaries.  It is planned for the first week of November but the committee still were set on a Halloween type party. Halloween is not a big deal here in Moscow so they wanted to introduce the ward to this American tradition.  There will be several activities including a photo booth and pumpkin carving.....and a dinner.  Guess who is in charge of the dinner for 50 to 70? We are!  Chili, hot dogs and buns (if we can find them), vegetables, chips and dessert. All we need to make it complete is homemade root beer but we don't even want to attempt that here.


Monday, we attended a YSA family home evening.  These are always on the first Monday of the month.  The theme was 'Be as a little child.'  After a spiritual thought, a game was played using cartoon super heroes.  Everything was done in Russian so we didn't know exactly what was going on.  Two groups decided on their favorite heroes and then wrote riddles about them for the other group to guess the answers....we think. After refreshments, they watched Winnie the Pooh.....in Russian!  It sure was strange to hear Russian coming from Winnie's mouth.  We found out later that Russia has their own Winnie the Pooh. He doesn't look or sound anything like ours, but the Russians love him.

Tuesday was district meeting as always.  We decided to serve potato soup, a recipe I found in the mission cookbook.  It is delicious. We thought it would be a good one for the elders and sisters to taste so maybe they would fix it for themselves.  It is a quick meal taking only 20 minutes to make....except when making it for 12. Elders Marks and Bass came early to help us with our Russian but I was running late so had to enlist their help in the kitchen....hence the apron on Elder Bass.




Wednesday, after making the final plans for our Institute lesson, we went on an adventure to try and find an electronic reenak (market).  Paul had been there the third day we were in Moscow and was determined to find it.  We needed to buy an 8 GB thumb drive so we could download all the conference sessions.  He was sure it was on the grey line of the Metro which meant we would go on the green line, then on the brown line and then on the grey line.  He was sure the reenak was on either the first, second or third stop up the grey line. We tried all three and, of course, we found it on the first stop of the grey line but that was the third stop we tried.  The reenak stretched for miles, it seemed.  All the stores had mostly the same wares to sell....lots of phones, Ipads and laptops.  We did find what we needed after walking a long, long way.  

That night two sisters from our ward and our two sister missionaries came over to make visiting teaching handouts for the ward sisters.  We glued copies of each visiting teacher's assignment on pieces of card stock and attached a refrigerator magnet to it. Visiting teaching is a real problem here as the sisters have to travel long distances on public transportation to make their visits.  I appreciated these sister's efforts to try and motivate the sisters to do better.


Thursday was our Institute lesson and Pathway gathering.  Before we teach, we always go to our Senior council meeting.  Our mental health specialist came to talk with us about the new 5 step program to help missionaries better prepare and cope with the rigors of day to day work in the mission field.  What an inspired and needed program now, especially with the missionary age being lowered.  

Our Institute lesson went really well.  We will have to remember, though, that English is our student's second language.  When breaking them into groups and having them read scriptures, we must give them more time than we have been planning.  The student's favorite part of the lesson was a game to try and guess the seniority order of the apostles. We had two teams competing and they really got into it.  Fun!

We are always grateful for Fridays. We can relax after our Institute lesson, for a minute, but we do always try to read the next week's lesson on that day so we can think about it all weekend.  Since we were going to be involved in watching conference all day Saturday, we decided to meet another couple for a mini p-day. We both wanted to check out another reenak....the Izmaylova Market. This one was a souvenir market where we found good prices on every kind of Russian souvenir one would want to buy....especially the stacking dolls. We were especially looking for Russian hats for the winter....but more likely for our costume box when we get home.  The market was set up in what used to be an amusement park, hence the castle look coming in.  We think there would have been more shops opened had we gone on the weekend, but we got a feel for what is available when we want to buy souvenirs for the family when we go home.  

These are the shops.  Rows and rows of them in this open air market.

Our silly hats.....very Russian and very warm.

Friday was also our game night at the Institute room.  We only had a few students come, but it was a lively affair.  Three of those who came are BYU intern students taking Russian classes at Moscow University.  They will be here until December.  They introduced us to a new game on the pool table, using only the black and white balls. You must hit the black one with the white one before the black one quits moving. The only catch is that you must hit it from the opposite end of the table from where the black ball is located and you must do it in turn with the other players.  We were running around the pool table each time our turn came up trying to complete the task. It got a little wild as we also tried to knock the black ball into a pocket so the person following us would get a letter. When you have enough letters to spell a specific word, you are out of the game.  I won the first game but I think the young single adults were taking it easy on me.

A really fun game!

OUR LIFE IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

Food is a big part of any activity with the YSA's.  They always assign food whenever they plan an activity. We are coming to realize that food to them means open faced sandwiches with mayonnaise, a slice of lunch meat, a piece of cheese and a few slices of cucumbers. We think they do this because they are easy and the YSA's need nourishment rather than lots of sweets. They usually come straight from work to our activities and are starving.  Of course, cookies are also always set out too so we always bring something yummy and homemade to add to the spread.

In Russia, the people are really working hard.  They are doing some renovating of our metro station, including the walking area around the building. When they first started this project we thought it would take months, but because they work around the clock it is getting done very quickly.  The cement blocks that are being used are also being laid on the street leading to the metro, creating a plaza type effect.  It will be really nice when it is completed.  Meanwhile, we can hear the cement saws buzzing late into the night, in fact, all night if we weren't sleeping. 

The work being done around the metro station.

Cement blocks being laid on this street creating a

pleasant way to walk to the metro. 

Watching movies is becoming a once a week happening here in our apartment. We enjoy just relaxing in front of a movie we've either downloaded or brought from home. Our little laptop screen is a bit smaller than our movie screen at home, but it works. We do have speakers we hook up so we can hear easily....not surround sound but at least sound.  We are considering buying a flat screen television and connecting it to our laptop with an HDMI cord strung through the wall into our office. It would make these movie sessions a little easier to set up and the larger screen would be an added benefit.  Just thinking......

THAT'S IT FOR ANOTHER WEEK.

SO FROM RUSSIA, WE SAY GOOD BYE FOR NOW.