WARMTH IN OUR APARTMENT AND WARMTH IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE

We came home on Sunday night to a warm apartment.  Hurray!!! It was the first night in several we didn't have to use our extra blanket or walk around in our apartment bundled up in sweatshirts.  All was great for a couple of days but now we are way too hot. The other night we came home to an apartment that was roasting.  Since we have no controls over the temperature in our apartment, we just opened windows to cool things off a bit.  We had heard, before we got here, that the Russians keep their apartments and offices very warm.....now we know that is a fact.  If that is the hardest thing we have to adjust to this winter, we will be just fine.

Every Sunday, we are more and more impressed with the dedication of our YSA leaders.  On the Sundays we have council meetings, they stay at church all day.  They come to their block meetings (some of which start at 10 am) and don't go home till after our council meetings (which often go till 8 or 9 pm).  Most of them live over and hour's metro ride away so to go home and back is not feasible.  

Our weekdays are falling into somewhat of a routine by now.  Mondays are shopping days. Tuesdays are district meeting days.  Wednesday are study and prep days and Thursdays are final prepping and teaching institute days.  It's a manageable schedule and is very rewarding.  Of course, young single activities and English group fill some of those nights as well as our Friday nights.  

A simple highlight of the week was finding a few things we hadn't been able to find. Another senior senior sister knew we were all asking about Worcestershire sauce and when she found a rare shipment at an exclusive store, she emailed us all.  We went right out and bought two bottles.  Another find was corn tortillas. We'd found flour ones and hard corn ones but not soft corn ones.  These are a corn and wheat tortilla but they should do just fine. We can now look forward to having some enchiladas.  We also found canned greed beans and marshmallows.  Oh, the excitement we feel in finding such common place items in America.

At our district meeting on Tuesday we welcomed two new elders and one new sister. We are again amazed how easily change comes for these dedicated missionaries. None of them missed a beat this week, even with new companions. Our new district leader did a fine job, too, presenting an inspiring lesson.  The subject was on the importance of working with ward members in their efforts to increase the work. He and his companion presented a plan to increase member support of missionary work. It included a weekly sign up sheet where members can volunteer to go on splits with the missionaries, set up home teaching visits with the elders, or sit in on a missionary discussion with an investigator.  Their enthusiasm for this new approach was contagious. We also watched several church produced videos that showed the results of member involvement.  A great meeting.

Elder Simmons is now

working in the office with

Elder Ricks

Elder Beals is new to our

district.  Both these elders

are great pianists

Our meal - Cafe Rio type soft tacos.  The missionaries

couldn't get enough of them.  They ate everything we had.

Sister Tolbert joined Sister Hawkins as the training sister in our mission.

Sister Hawkins will be going home at the end of the month.  So sad.

This week we got a surprise envelope in the mail.  It was this big sign with our name on it on which the Beehive girls of our in ward in Heber wrote us sweet messages of encouragement and thanks.  A picture was included.  These girls are the ones that graduated from Primary while I was working in the Primary and are such sweet young women.  Thank you.

So thoughtful

Our institute room all set up and ready to go. 

Students arrive at 6:45 and we teach until 8:00. 

Paul is setting up for a video presentation.

Our institute lesson was on the President of the Church and how he is the living prophet and holds all the keys of the Priesthood necessary to move the church forward. We talked about the many marvelous things each president of the Church, through revelation, has set in place.  These things are the work of the Lord in these last days to prepare us for His coming.  We love our class and the spirit contained therein.  An interesting bit of information.....in the last three weeks, we have had three people from our English group come to our institute.  They are not members of the church and the doctrine we taught was probably a bit deep for them.  Hopefully they not only felt welcomed, but felt the spirit.

President and Sister Borders and

their lovely home.

Midweek, we were thrilled to get a call from Sister Borders, our mission president's wife, who asked us to come to dinner with them. They were finally taking a P-day (the first one since they arrived 4 months ago) and wanted to spend the last part of it with us. We were honored. On Friday, late afternoon, we met President Borders at the mission office and he took us to their lovely home.  How fun it was to actually ride in a car and be in an actual home, not an apartment. Their development reminded us of Kentucky because of all it's red brick homes.  They were actually duplexes and triplexes, but were very spacious and nice. It is a gated community where a lot of international business executives live.  Our Area Presidency also lives in this complex. There is a restaurant on the grounds as well as tennis courts, a large swimming pool, a work out facility, hair salon, grocery store, and a bowling alley.  Too bad President and Sister Borders are too busy to take advantage of all the amenities.  We did go to their restaurant for dinner, though, and it was wonderful....the best meal we've had in a restaurant since we've been here.  It was so fun to visit and get to know this wonderful couple.  We are in awe of what they are expected to do and how well they are doing it.  He not only is the mission president, responsible for all the missionaries, but is also the stake president for all the little branches outside of the Moscow stake. He is traveling a lot with that responsibility alone.  Luckily, he has two counselors who are Russian and live outside of Moscow who can help him. Such a wonderful evening spent with amazing people.

The restaurant in the Border's complex. 

Wonderful atmosphere....wonderful food.

Two other things happened this week.  English group ended. It is an eight week course and then we take a 4 week break so the elders and sisters can encourage different people to come. The course will be changing when we start up again.  We will miss our Wednesday discussions for the next month as we love our conversation group.  Many of them wanted to know the exact date we would be starting again. We are glad they want to come back.  We have come to love our regular attendees. The other thing that happened this week was that our elevator got stuck. Luckily, we were not in it at the time.  When it came up to our floor, so we could go down, the doors wouldn't close.  They stayed opened for the next several hours until someone got it working again.  Meanwhile it was 4 flights of stairs, with groceries in hand.  Ugh!

And finally it was P-day.  We spent the morning doing some of the things we needed to catch up on, but by 3 o'clock we were ready to play. We met 3 other couples at our metro station and walked to the largest cathedral in Russia.  It is called the Cathedral of Christ our Savior and is very impressive.  We were fortunate to be able to go inside and view a ceremony conducted by the Russian Orthodox Priests.  They sang and chanted beautifully and the people around us were very much engaged in their worship. We were grateful that the Russian people still believe in a supreme being and His Son, Jesus Christ.  After decades of the government trying to stamp out all forms of worship, including tearing down this magnificent church (which now has been restored), it is amazing that there is any form of religion left.  

The group at dinner. 

A great Italian restaurant

After walking through the cathedral, we took a short metro ride to the Bolshoi theater. Close by be found a wonderful Italian restaurant where we ate dinner and visited while we waited for the Light Fest to begin.  This is a week long happening where four different venues feature a light show.  The lights are shown onto a historic building (in our case the Bolshoi) to create beautiful patterns and scenes, all done to music. The presentation lasted about a half hour and would be repeated many times that evening.  It was spectacular and it left us all wondering how it was done so effectively.  At times it looked like the building was crumbling and shaking.  Other times it looked like it was flooded with water and then on fire.  Often lights were used to create magnificent designs on the building and play scenes across its face. Absolutely amazing.  We were so glad someone told about this week long celebration of light.

The Famous Bolshoi Ballet Theater before dark

As the light show began, the whole face of the theater lite up with

colorful designs all done in lights.

As the performance continued there were ballerinas

dancing across the face of the building.

Several times whole scenes were illuminated onto the theater

Part of the show included those horses coming alive as

well as all the mythical characters depicted in stone 

on the face of the building.  Of course it was all an illusion

created with light and very effective.

SPOTLIGHT OF LIFE IN RUSSIA

It finally happened.  We have been talking about the traffic and the speed with which the drivers go down the street in front of our apartment.  Well, the other day, we were walking to the church and saw this.  How it happened we do not know, but it took until the next day to remove the car from off the sidewalk.

We have to share a funny thing about paying our electric bill this month.  We walked to the bank where the teller will pay the bill for us.  We walked into the bank and, like in America, just got in line behind a person being helped at one of the teller windows.  When that customer was done we stepped up to the window and handed the teller our bill and Paul said, in broken Russian, "Pay bill, please."  The teller hesitated and tried to tell us something which we could not understand, of course. We began hearing some commotion from some people in the bank as the teller motioned for another bank employee to come over to us.  Paul tried to take the bill back but the teller wouldn't let him have it.  The employee handed her a piece of paper with a number on it and the teller proceeded to pay our bill for us.  We left the bank and then realized the people in the bank had all taken numbers and we had cut in front of all of them.  Oh, the advantages of not understanding the language.  We really did feel terrible and will know next time to take a number.  The only problem with that is that we will not know when our number is called as we don't know how to say all the numbers in Russian.

When we can't find something here in Russia, we figure out a way to make it or do without.  This week, when we were shopping for our district meeting lunch, we needed flour tortillas.  The store where we were shopping always has flour tortillas, except for that day. When I got home I decided it was a good time to experiment with making homemade ones.  They are a lot of work but the elders and sisters loved them.  They were the first to be eaten over the store bought ones I found at another store later that day.

In Moscow, seeing limousines is common place but have you ever seen a pink one. Check out the black one, too.  Whole wedding parties can be driven in limos this size.

ABOUT THE SPECIAL WARMTH WE FEEL HERE IN RUSSIA

In the title of this week's blog, we mentioned the warmth of the people.  We have felt it since the first day we arrived.  Within the first week, we had a little girl come up to us and hand Paul his credit card that had accidentally fallen out of his wallet.  We were so very grateful for this little girl. On the metro, I am often offered a seat by some young man when there are none available.  The other day Paul was even offered a seat by a younger man.  It must be that our age is showing.  We do appreciate this show of warmth.

Within our senior couple group, we feel so much love and warmth among us.  Paul and I have been invited to dinner by so many of the couples and have loved getting to know them.  Each couple has so much to give and are so willing to give it all.  We also take care of each other....ie: the Worcestershire sauce of this week and being told about the light festival.  

We feel love and warmth from our young singles who include us in all their activities and make us feel important in their lives.  Our missionaries are so wonderful to involve us with their investigators and to make us feel very loved.  

WE FEEL SO VERY BLESSED TO BE HERE AT THIS TIME, 

SERVING THE PEOPLE OF MOSCOW.