48TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED ON RED SQUARE

RYMs all lit up for Christmas

Who would have ever thought that we would be celebrating our 48th wedding anniversary walking around Red Square in Moscow in the winter snow.  That is exactly how we spent our anniversary (actually the day before our anniversary). We invited the Piersons and Hays to join us for dinner Saturday night, the 21st, at an Italian restaurant across the street from the Bolshoi Theater.  After a delightful meal, we walked the short distance to the Red Square.  Our friends hadn't seen all the Christmas decorations yet and we had seen them only in the daytime.  What a fairyland it was at night and in the snow.  RYM's (Goom) department store was completely lit up complimenting the massive Christmas tree in front also bedecked with lights. People were everywhere buying presents at the little Christmas shops, ice skating at the ice skating rink, and, like us, just admiring the beauty and feeling the excitement of Christmas.  There was a light snow falling which made it even more magical.  We all kept saying, "Can you believe we are really here."  A perfect anniversary celebration.

At a favorite Italian restaurant just off Red Square

with some dear friends

Almost a temple square effect surrounding the Bolishoi Theater

A magical fairyland

A side note: As we walked through GYM's to see the magnificent decorations there, 'Raindrops Keep Falling on Your Head' was being played over the loud speaker.  A unique kind of holiday music, we thought.  

All ready for decorating.  I had to

make the colored sugar as there

is no such thing here.

Our week started with our weekly shop at Ashans during the day and our family Home evening in our home that night.  This Monday we had a total of 19 in our little apartment.  It was a riot trying to play 'Four on a Couch' with everyone crowded into our living room.  We decided to have our guests experience an American holiday tradition and decorate sugar cookies for refreshments. I had the cookies baked, the frosting made, and the candies set out for everyone to use. When the investigators first came into the kitchen they didn't know what to do. I had to show them how to frost and decorate a cookie. Once I did, they really got into it. They were getting real creative by the end, taking pictures of their creations, posting them on facebook and then, of course, eating their cookies with a glass of milk.  It was so much fun watching them react to a tradition which is so common to us.  

Dema showing off his creation.  He took a picture of it and then ate it.

Tuesday, we went to the South building to a Zone training meeting.  The training was centered around our area president's directions to our mission leadership council on how to be the best missionaries they can be.  Our zone leaders did a great job conveying his message. It will be a great boon to our mission if the missionaries will follow his suggestions like being 100% obedient, totally focused, and unified as a companionship.  He suggested that sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. With that suggestion, the elders and sisters in our zone decided to sacrifice something in order to call upon the powers above to help them meet a rather high member presence goal.  After much discussion it was decided they would all give up sweets until the next transfer(5 weeks). That meant no sweets during the Christmas holidays. Quite a sacrifice.  Because of this commitment, we won't be serving any desserts for the next few district meetings, not even on Christmas day. We won't be having a sugar plum for Christmas dinner nor will we give them the Millar traditional tea ring as a Christmas gift. Just a little stress, now, to have to find something else to give our elders and sisters and to change our Christmas day menu.


After the meeting we met the Kings, Ottleys, and Ropers at another Starlight diner (we've been to 3 different ones now) for dinner. We weren't in the mood for hamburgers so I ordered a salmon and rice pilaf dish and Paul ordered a lemon chicken dish with Alfredo and pasta. Both were delicious. We had fun visiting with the Ropers who sat right across from us. They are new to our mission from Orem, Utah and will be a great addition to our senior couple group.  The Kings and Ottleys were in town to take their semi annual migration trip to Riga, Latvia. All missionaries have to leave the country every 6 months in order to get new migration papers. (Our trip will be in January.) The Kings spent the night at our apartment and then left in the early morning for the train to take them to the airport for their trip.

The Kings and Ottleys and us waiting for the Ropers at the metro station

Once again our English group discussion was fun.  We talked about education and learning. After the activity, we had to tell a story about education and learning. Paul found one called Rose.  It was about an 87 year old lady who went to college to get a degree because she had always dreamed of getting an education.  A week after she graduated she passed away.  Over 2000 students attended her funeral because she had impacted their lives in some way.  At a football banquet where she was asked to speak, she sang a song entitled 'The Rose.'  We found that song recorded by Bette Midler and played it for the group.  It was very effective.

As we were rearranging the chairs in the classroom, a group of missionaries came in to watch a video with an investigator. The TV didn't have a DVD player so we invited them to come to our apartment to use ours.  As a result, we got to watch the Restoration video again (this time in English) and sit in on a discussion.  The young man has committed to be baptized on the 7th of January.  

Our third semester students

excited to begin their on-line education at BYU Idaho.

10 of 14 are matriculating.

We conducted our last Institute and gathering meeting for this semester on Thursday night. Our lesson was based on Elder Holland's powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon given in October 2009 general conference.  We are teaching the Book of Mormon for the next two semesters and we wanted to motivate our students to begin reading it. Between institute and our gathering we had a pizza party - 8 pizzas, pop, cut up vegetables, and Christmas cookies.  At our gathering the students in both classes had an opportunity to review their semester.  It was exciting to hear how much these students have appreciated their learning and the opportunity to get an education at a wonderful university for a much reduced cost.  So worth our (mostly Paul's) effort to keep the program running smoothly.

Isaac will be gone til after the

new year. 

Friday we said goodbye to Isaac, our home study seminary student, as he is going home for the holidays. We gave him three units to do while he is away.  We'll keep up with him and study what he is studying so we can be on the same page when he returns.  We do love teaching him every week.

The puzzle

Sweet Leelee

Friday we got to game night and  started a new puzzle. The puzzle we had been working on was finished by Leelee, a sweet friend.  She had come and finished it during Pathway the night before.  The last two puzzles we have started, have been completed by someone else. It is a standing joke with Leelee and Paul about who will work most of each puzzle.  She shared with us that she received her mission call.  She is so excited because she is going to be serving on Temple Square.  She said she had dreamed of serving there since she was a little girl.  The Lord knew her desire.  She will be wonderful as she is very outgoing, has a darling personality, and speaks pretty good English.  We are so excited for her.

Taken on Sunday at church

That brings us back to Saturday.  It was a very busy day. Before going to dinner for our anniversary, we had a luncheon at our home with a new friend and her niece. We met Natalia on our way to church last Sunday. She is from Armenia but left there 20 years ago with her husband and two daughters to go to America.  She lives in Beaverton, Oregon.  She found the church while living in America and her whole family was baptized thanks to the home teacher of their host family. This is her first trip to Russia in those 20 years. She is visiting some family members who live here. Sunday, she was looking for our ward building.  We just happened to run into her on our way to church, so we took her with us. We found out that the family she is staying with here in Moscow has been asking her questions about her church.  She talked about wanting to get her niece together with some members so she could get to know someone her age. During the week, I arranged to have her bring her niece to our home Saturday afternoon for lunch.  I invited the sister missionaries and a ward member to come too.  At the last minute the ward member couldn't come, but we had a wonderful lunch and great visit anyway. We left each other grateful we had had this opportunity to become friends.  A special day.

Natalia, Sisters Tolbert and Simmons, and Tamara

Served Cafe Rio chicken soup.  A Big Hit!

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

Here in the Russia Moscow Mission, the elders are asked to carry man purses instead of backpacks.  Paul swore he would never be caught dead carrying one.  One of our elders left his man purse at our home and we had to take it to him at our zone training so.... Paul had to wear it.  Never say never.

Taken about 9:30 in the morning

We have experienced our shortest day here in Moscow. It was dark at 4:30 p.m. and just getting light at 9:30 a.m.  The days only get longer from here on out.

A week ago we were in a grocery store and came across these lovely rabbits all ready to take home to cook for dinner......paws and all.  We about died.

We'll end this blog with all the beautiful Christmas trees we have seen all over the city. They are everywhere and each one is very unique.

...and even a Metro tree.  The M is the symbol

in front of every metro station.

WE SEND EVERYONE OUR MERRIEST OF CHRISTMAS WISHES.

MAY YOU FEEL THE TRUE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS ALWAYS.

WE ARE A WEEK BEHIND IN OUR BLOG POSTS 

SO OUR REPORT OF OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS

IN RUSSIA WILL BE NEXT WEEK.

CHRISTMAS HAS COME TO MOSCOW

The Christmas tree on Red Square

Christmas has come to Moscow. Everywhere we look there are signs of Christmas...huge Christmas trees inside and outside of every mall, store windows adorned with Christmas lights and decorations, children dressed in their snow clothes shopping hand in hand with their mothers, and Russian Santas walking the streets.  One of the Santas we saw was dressed in blue robes and was walking with his snow princess, a Russian tradition. On our walk to Red Square on Wednesday, we noticed Christmas was everywhere there as well. The tree outside GYM department store is the tallest we have ever seen. The ice sculptures that line the sidewalks of the Red Square are wondrous. In the center of the square there are booths selling Christmas items and an ice skating rink where many people love to skate.
There is an excitement in the air just as there is at home. We were in a mall near the Red Square and saw a Russian Santa walking toward the center of the mall.  We followed him to the area where he sits to talk with children. He was taking pictures with anyone who asked so we had our picture taken with him. He was decked out in the typical brocade satin, fur trimmed robe and a flat, fur trimmed hat. Russian Santas also carry a decorated scepter. 

These ice sculptures line the whole street in front of GYM department store.

That must mean it will be cold enough from now on so they won't melt.

Christmas has even come to our little apartment.  Monday we did our weekly shop and found new lights for our tree.  That afternoon we decorated it just in time for family home evening. We had one investigator come, along with our missionaries and a member of ward.  We all played some lively games of UNO. Those playing had some interesting rules for the game which made it really move fast.  The investigator seemed to enjoy himself especially when he won two of the three games. We served root beer floats and cookies for refreshments.  We had to make the root beer as you cannot find it here unless you want to pay 3 to 5 dollars a can.  It was made from extract, water, sugar and yeast. Quite tasty.

This game got livelier once our ward member came.

Tuesday was our district meeting....the last before transfers.  The office elders and the assistants to the President were involved in greeting new elders and sisters at the airport and making all the transfer arrangements so they didn't come to our district lunch. For the first time, since we've been here, we could sit around our table in the kitchen and have lunch. It was a nice change, although we miss the other elders when they are not here for lunch on Tuesdays.  We are losing our Elder Marx, who has been in our district since we arrived.  It will be hard not to see him as often as we are used to, but we will see him on Sundays.  He has been transferred to the ward that meets in the same building as we do. Elder Merrill, from the office, is also leaving us and we are getting a special elder, Elder Genys, to replace him.  We have come to know and enjoy Elder Genys through our English group and now he is in our district as an office elder.  He seems real excited to be in our district.

Our district leader, Elder Marx, was transferred

on Wednesday.  We will miss him very much.

By Wednesday, Paul could breathed a sigh of relief as all our potential Pathway students for next semester made the application deadline.  He has been working tirelessly with each of them to help them apply.  Now there is the registration deadline but that isn't such a hard and fast deadline.  We are grateful that all 12 students applied so now we can for sure have a new cohort in January.  


Wednesday also brought transfers and English group. We had a great discussion with our English group on Leaders and Role Models. We love this time together with our Russian friends.  

At institute this week we had three new students.  They are from Africa and have been going to the International ward.  Their bishop invited them to come to our institute so they did.  They are converts of less than two years.  We loved having them in our class and hope they come next week, too.  We taught Elder Oak's conference talk on "Other Gods."  We had lots of participation in our discussion and showed a perfect video. It helped demonstrate the idea of worldly things becoming our priority and thereby our gods.  We love how we are led to things that will help us in our lessons. We do feel the hand of the Lord with us in our preparations.



Friday was a special morning.  Paul had the opportunity to be a part of a missionary discussion via Skype.  The contact, Andrey, is 'golden' as they say in the mission field. Paul will tell you about this experience.

Andrey is a Russian gentlemen in his 30's who has a wife and child.  He was very gracious in his comments as I talked to him about the Restoration of the Gospel and about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.  He is a little unique as both of his parents are terminally ill with cancer.  He was very interested in the Plan of Salvation, especially in our belief about life after death.  I discussed our beliefs with him and it seemed to give him great comfort.  I'm sure the missionaries could have done just as well, if not better, but the fact that I was older seemed to reinforce things with him. I also talked to him about how the Gospel has brought me, a 70 year old grandfather, eternal joy and happiness.  The thing that really made this experience wonderful was that he said he felt a warm and comforting feeling while he listened to my message.  That was pretty amazing because everything I said had to be translated by the Elders.  The great news -- I later learned that he has set a baptism date in January.  It is really neat to be a part of this great work with these great people, even if I can't speak the language.


Saturday, we went with the Piersons to a store close to where they live.  We were looking for a ham and they had purchased one at this particular store for Thanksgiving.  We found what we wanted but then decided to do something else for Christmas dinner because a week later the mission would be serving a ham dinner to all the missionaries.  We can now, though, tell Sister Borders where she can go to find ham.  She has not been successful in finding hams where she shops. We all help each other when it comes to finding food items that we need.  We enjoyed lunch at the store and then took a walk through a mall right next door.  The mall caters to very wealthy people and has a reflection pool, a running creek, and atriums throughout the mall.  There was a string quartet playing classical music at one end of the mall and a pianist playing a grand piano at the other end.  We've never seen anything quite like this....except maybe Caesar's Palace shopping mall in Las Vegas.

We don't know how the shops in this mall stay in business as we saw, maybe,

ten people shopping in the whole mall.  It is an amazing place though.

Just after taking this picture a security guard started following us so

I didn't dare take any more pictures.  They must not like photographs

being taken of their exclusive shops here.

We raced home so we could open up the institute room for a YSA activity that started at 5. They were assembling special Christmas packets to take to the less actives in the stake as a combined missionary/YSA activity for January. (The official religious date for Christmas here is January 7)

Just a note: We bring cookies to all of the YSA events and they love eating them.  We were told that a survey was taken on  Facebook among our YSA.  The purpose was to find out what kind of cookies they liked the best (ie: wafers, chocolate, shortbread, etc).  Two different people told us about the survey because they said the number one kind of cookie reported on the survey was 'Sister Millar's cookies.'   

It seems like this is the week for missionary discussions.  Saturday night, after the YSA activity, the sisters brought an investigator to our home for a discussion.  We watched the Restoration video (in Russian, of course).  This was only their second discussion with her and she seemed to accept all that was said.  I made gingerbread with whipped cream to serve for a dessert.  It was a good evening.  Later that night the AP's called and wanted to know if they could hold a discussion in our home Sunday just before church.  It would be with Andrey. He lives about 3 hours outside of Moscow but was coming in to attend church with the elders.  The discussion, on Sunday, was on the word of wisdom. Andrey had already given up drinking alcohol but giving up tea seemed to be a little hard to which to commit.  By the end of the discussion, though, he said he would break the tea drinking habit and promised to do it by the new year. (This is a big issue with lots of investigators as drinking tea is a very popular past time.)  The spirit was so strong during the discussion. Both Paul and I were able, through a translator, to add a little to the discussion.  It is so wonderful to see the light of the gospel touch these people's lives. Andre said he can already see and feel the difference in his life since he has been studying the Book of Mormon and learning more about he gospel.  What a special way to start off the Sabbath. Coming in contact with such wonderful people to teach is like Christmas for our elders and sisters.....the best kind of gift they could receive.

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

The weather has become cold enough to freeze the river and force Paul into wearing a hat.  Pretty cold.

Fur coats are a popular item here in Moscow.  Since it has turned rather cold, we see women everywhere wearing their fur coats and hats.  They come in all sorts of styles and many shades of browns and blacks and whites.  They are beautiful and look like they would keep you very warm. 

We thought this was a very interesting way to remove the snow from off the roof. We hear there is a real problem of snow sliding off the roofs.  Many of the roofs are made of tin and so the snow will slide off in big, heavy sheets of snow and ice. People have been injured from the snow landing on them from a roof.  

Children are so cute in their snow clothes.  Their mothers deck them out in hats, boots, mittens and snow suits.  We got a kick out of this grandmother (babooshka) showing a shopping catalog to her grandson in anticipation of what Santa (or Father Frost in Russia) might bring him. Children are the same everywhere.

WE ARE FEELING THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT HERE IN MOSCOW

AND LOVING IT.

A RUSSIAN CIRCUS - A SPECTACULAR EVENT IN MOSCOW

As a group of senior couples, we attended a Russian circus this week.  Circuses are a big thing here in Moscow.  There are two, a new one and old one, that run most of the year.  The one we attended was the new one and was almost sold out. The people in attendance were extremely enthusiastic about what they were seeing. We loved it too.  We hadn't been to a circus since we were little children so this was a very fun thing to do. The show was done excellently. Some of the acts reminded us of a Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil type show.....lots of acrobatic moves and use of ropes suspended from the ceiling on which were performed amazing feats. Of course there were the jugglers, clowns and horsemanship acts, as well. One of our favorite acts was with the lions and tigers.  Two men worked with as many as 6 tigers and 2 lions at one time in the ring. Two of the tigers were white tigers and the male lion was also beautifully white. They jumped through hoops and over bars, stood on their hind legs, and many other things. Such of fun evening.  The pictures will do a better job of explaining what we saw than we can.

A group of jump ropers. 

At one time there were men standing

three high on shoulders jumping the ropes.  

Such precision on the bars

This group is getting ready to toss the girl up onto the shoulders 

of the man standing on the one man's shoulders

This was an incredible act.  These two men were balancing as this contraption

circled around with the individual cages spinning as the men walked.  They juggled 

and jumped rope while balancing on the tops of the circling and spinning cages.

This picture didn't take well but there are seven dancers

hanging from the bar suspended from the ceiling.

These riders did some amazing tricks from their horses.  At one time they brought out wagons pulled by horses from which jugglers tossed pins across the ring to each other.

The man on the bottom of the teeter totter will be flipped onto

the shoulders of the man standing on the bottom man's shoulders.

Twice men on stilts were tossed into the air from the teeter totters,

did a flip in the air, and landed upright on their stilts.  One was on

a single stilt like a Pogo stick.  Incredible.

And then there were the lions and tigers.

Sitting up on command

Getting ready to jump through his second hoop

No explanation needed.  Cats will be cats.

Here is the beautiful white lion.  He jumped, with his

trainer on his back, to the other metal circle.

And the finale of an almost 3 hour show.

Very entertaining.

This circus was on Saturday at the end of a pretty uneventful week, especially compared to last week. Our usual study and preparation for three lessons - Institute, seminary, and English - took up the majority of our day times.  Paul spent some time working on our taxes.  He was so excited when he could finally download turbo tax. Of course, he started organizing our financial information immediately.  He is in his element when he is into finance and accounting. 

Monday night we went to our stake family home evening with the young singles.  It was a Christmas theme so, after a spiritual thought, they made cards to send to all the missionaries serving in the field from our stake. The usual open faced sandwiches were served and as always we brought homemade cookies. At Paul's suggestion, we took strawberry jello cookies, frosted and decorated with green sprinkles and M&M's. They were a big hit and the 50 plus cookies were gone within minutes.



District meeting was Tuesday as usual. Guess what we served?  Chili!  I wanted the elders and sisters to taste the chili over chips so we did a repeat of the YSA 'break the fast meal' on Sunday. I typed up the recipe to share with the missionaries because it is one they can make in less than 20 minutes for a quick and easy and delicious meal. They loved it.  Elder Simmons had had a birthday during the previous week so we put a candle on his cream puff and sang happy birthday.  Paul was asked to give the spiritual thought for our meeting.  The day before we had seen a video on Facebook entitled 'Christmas Mission.'  It has many good lessons for young missionaries in the field so we showed it to the district.  It got us all into the Christmas spirit and was very effective in showing ways to share the gospel.

Later that afternoon, the Assistants to the President came by for their lunch.  They were involved working on transfers with the President and couldn't get away in time for our district meeting.  They called and asked if we could save it for them so we did.  We were so glad they felt comfortable enough to ask and that they like our meals enough to make a special trip to our apartment to eat.  Actually, they had a teaching appointment at the Central Building afterward so it worked out perfectly for them.  That night was our first night home in over two weeks.  It was a nice change. We watched a movie to relax.

English group was well attended.  We had the largest turn out in our conversation group that we've ever had, 27.  We talked about problem solving and played a guessing game with them.  They seem to like this new format, especially the refreshments afterwards.  We took a batch of 3 layered brownies and a loaf of pumpkin bread.  Every week, the Russians stay and eat until the refreshments are all gone.  It is giving the elders and sisters lots of time to get to know them and find out if they are interested in being taught the gospel.

We took a different approach with our Institute lesson on Thursday.  The lesson was on Elder Ballard's conference talk entitled "Trust in the Lord."  It was centered around missionary work and how the work is so much more effective when the members are involved. We introduced the talk and then showed the "Christmas Mission" video.  We used it as a teaching tool to brainstorm ways, we as members, can be more effective as missionaries.  It went well.

Afterwards our weekly gathering meetings for Pathway was held.  I ended up having to help teach the English class.  Our lead student was unable to come and his replacement hadn't had much time to prepare.  They were writing letters using adjective phrases.  The activity was Mad Libs, using adjective phrases with who, that, and which.  Very few of the students even knew what a Mad Lib was so it was a good thing I was there to tell them and to conduct the activity.  The resulting letter turned out pretty funny.



Friday, after a few hours of study, we taught Isaac his home study seminary lesson and then went to game night. Saturday we found a Christmas tree up above our closet cabinet in our bedroom. Of course, I had to put it up immediately. We couldn't decorate it, though, because we had to buy different lights. The ones in the decoration box were blinkers where half the stings blinks off at one time. Most annoying. We'll have a finished product next week once we can get to a store. It'll be nice to have a bit of Christmas in our apartment.

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHTS

The other day we needed to buy some more laundry detergent.  At the store we picked up a bag of Tide and brought it home.  I was getting ready to do a wash and noticed that the package looked a little different from the one we had just finished. Using Google translate, I typed in some of the words on the package and found out we had purchased a Tide that was just for soaking.  In fact, it warned not to use it in a washing machine.  Go figure...never heard of a Tide like that in America. Oh, the joys of not knowing the language.  Shopping is really interesting because we can't read labels.  We are grateful when there is a picture on the package.  At least then we kind of know what we are buying. Although the other day I bought a can of what I thought was tomato sauce and it turned out to be whole tomatoes.  

Flowers are a big thing in Russia as we see people carrying them around all the time.  We've noticed these flowers are usually carried upside down instead of right side up. We don't really know why but we thought it interesting.

In our bathroom in our apartment, we have a heated towel rack.  We have noticed them in many other apartments here too. They help to dry the towels out quicker and it is really nice to have a warm towel to use on a cold night. Humid places in the U.S. could use some of these.

THAT'S IT FOR ANOTHER WEEK. 

AS OF TODAY WE HAVE BEEN ON OUR MISSION 5 MONTHS

AMAZING!