LONGER AND WARMER DAYS....YEAH!

How wonderful it is to wake up to sunlight coming into our window instead of darkness until 10 in the morning.....so much easier to start our days with light. We are beginning to put our winter coats in the back of our closets and pulling out our spring clothes.  The snow of last week only lasted a day or two and was melted by the third day. It is amazing how light and warmth make the days so much nicer. The missionaries are loving these days...no coats or scarves or gloves. We're grateful that Spring is just around the corner.


This week we did nothing out of the ordinary, but it was still a great week.  Monday we bought a hand blender at the store.  I have wanted one since we've arrived so we finally bought one. It was wonderful for mashing refried beans for our district meeting. At the store, the clerk noticed that I was looking at several brands of hand blenders.  He came up and pointed out one blender that was more powerful and had two attachments. It was only a few rubles more than the one I had put in our cart.  I was so grateful for his help in making a decision.....it works wonderfully well and I'll use the attachments often.  



Monday evening, we had the privilege of sitting in on a discussion with the International elders and a French African young man.  He only spoke French so the elders brought a French speaking member with them to interpret.  It was a good discussion and the Restoration video was well received.  The investigator said the closing prayer. Though we couldn't understand what he was saying we could feel the spirit very strongly.  We found out today that he has met with the elders 4 more times this week and has a baptismal date of April 6.  He is definitely golden. Sunday afternoon the elders brought him back to our home so Paul could explain the Pathway program to him.  He will have to learn more English before he will qualify, but he can set that as a goal to work on after his baptism.  Our friend, Raymond came with the elders to interpret what Paul was saying.  His darling wife and boys came, too.  While Paul was talking, the older boy and the elders ate most of the nuts and caramels we had sitting on the coffee table. It was so wonderful to have little children in our home.  Oh, how we miss our grandchildren.

We had both hard and soft shells so

of our missionaries combined them

into one taco.....our Todd's favorite.

Tuesday was district meeting. We served soft tacos, hence the need for refried beans. The lunch was a huge success as was the dessert of brownie sundaes. While shopping last week, we found a package of a chocolate ice cream mix so I made chocolate ice cream (beating cream plus the contents of the package together and freezing it). The missionaries assembled their own sundaes of brownies, vanilla and chocolate ice cream, chocolate and marshmallow sauces, and whipped cream.  It was yummy.  We welcomed two new elders to our district. It will be fun to spoil them a bit.

Assembling their own brownie sundaes. 

The first two in line are our new elders,

 Elder Eliason and Elder Knight

After district meeting, Elders Jewkes and Friar brought Evonne by for a lesson.  All the other elders and sisters had not left yet so Paul met with them in the office for a lesson.  After the lesson Evonne presented Paul with a gift....a watch with lots of fancy features on it. Evonne is really a sweet young man.  We found out today that he has a baptismal date of April 13th. We are excited for him.

Evonne, showing Paul and Elder Jewkes all the bells

and whistles on the watch he gave Paul.

Wednesday, we prepped our lesson for Institute and waited for the elders to bring an investigator over for a lesson. When they were an hour late we called and found out their appointment had canceled and they had forgotten to call us.  We immediately left the apartment to go over to the institute room to clean out our office.  We are hardly ever in the office as we do most of our work at home, but our coordinator asked if we would clean things up a bit and throw away what was not being used. We went through files and drawers, finding papers dating back to 2009.  We hauled out a full garbage bag of unnecessary items. It feels good when we enter the office to see things organized and cleaned.  The young singles use the office often so we don't know how long it will stay that way, but at least the files are more up to date.

Our organized office

Thursday was our Institute class and Pathway gathering.  We always spend most of the day doing final lesson preparations. Our lesson compared three groups of people who were delivered out of bondage....Limhi's people, Alma's people, and his son Alma and the sons of Mosiah.  The first two groups were being held captive by their enemies, the Lamanites. Alma and the sons of Mosiah were in the bondage of sin. It was a fun lesson to teach. Afterwards Victoria and her brother Vald came up to me to thank us for our work in preparing our lessons each week.  They said they always go away having learned something new and feeling the spirit.  That's all the thanks we need. 

Notice the hamburger. 

It's become  Paul's favorite

 39 ruble (about a dollar) hamburger.

On Friday we are getting in the habit of going to the Metropolis mall for lunch at Wendy's. By then, we are so ready to get out of the house after three days of studying that we find ourselves six metro stops north at Wendy's....loving their Baja salads.  Before leaving this Friday, I baked cookies for Isaac, our seminary student. When he comes each Friday we try to have something sweet and homemade for him. He has lost 12 pounds since returning to Moscow from his Christmas break. Not good. He really appreciates a little taste of home.

What we set out for Isaac every week -

A treat and  the lesson for his next week's study

Game night turned out to be a night for the missionaries.  Because of trips to Riga for immigration purposes and companionship splits, we ended up having as many as four sisters and two elders up in the institute room waiting for their trains or companions.
They helped us finish the puzzle we had been working on for three weeks. It was great to be with our missionaries but we missed not having any YSA's in attendance.

We had to photograph this upside down because of the glare of the lights.

It was a fun puzzle to do of St. Basil and the Kremlin.

Sister Borders and her

interpreter

Saturday was a Stake Relief Society conference which was very well attended. There were several speakers, including sister Borders and our new Stake President.  After a short break, the Stake President and his wife put on a seminar about marriage and family. It was the best part of the day. I spent the late afternoon baking brownies and congo bars to send to a baptism on Sunday. The bishop asked if I would make some treats for the baptism. Of course I agreed even though we wouldn't be able to be there due to a YSA council meeting at the same time. 

It was so gratifying to see so many faithful Russian women 

sitting in the audience and being spiritually fed.

After our YSA Council meeting on Sunday, we set up for the CES broadcast.  Sister Burton, General Relief Society President, was the speaker. We had only one YSA come up to watch it in English with us. Everyone else watched the broadcast downstairs in Russian. Late that night we helped Katie, our daughter-in-law, teach her 4 year old primary class in Medford, Oregon. She facetimed us about 11:15 pm, our time, so we could tell the children what real live missionaries do and why we serve missions, even far away in Russia. It was really cute to see the children with their missionary tags pinned on their shirts and dresses.  They even introduced themselves as Elder and Sister along with their last names. Our granddaughter, Grace, was in the class which made it even more special for us. What a clever way to teach a class about being missionaries.

Katie's primary class seen through facetime.

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

Our friend, Evonne, made an interesting comment in one of the discussions we had with him.  He said, "In America you are always happy and smiling. In Russia we like to suffer." We thought that was an interesting outlook on life. When he is baptized and fully embraces the gospel of Jesus Christ in his life, he will find that happiness.

That letter in the middle is an L so

milk is pronounced MALAKO.

Most times O sounds like Ah.

This past week we found a food item we thought was none existent in Russia, condensed milk.  We were looking for sweetened condensed milk and pick up what we thought it might be. When we opened it, we found out it was evaporated or condensed milk.  I have avoided making a couple of recipes because they called for condensed milk and I didn't think we could get it here.  A fun find.

We also found cottage cheese.  We had known they had a similar product but we didn't know what to look for.  Wanting to make lasange, we went on the hunt for TVORG (the Russian word for cottage cheese. In the Russian language, a B sounds like V, a P sounds like R and an r sounds like G.). We found it in all sorts of varieties, but were lucky with the one we selected. It was perfect for our lasagne.

Speaking of lasagne, we found these no cook noodles. They work wonderfully well and make assembling lasagne so easy.  I may have to bring some back to the states.

WARM AND SUNSHINY WEATHER.....

MAKING IT ANOTHER WONDERFUL WEEK

LOW KEY WEEK....LOTS OF 'FIGS'.

 So glad our couch has this storage area under the

cushions of one section.  It comes in mighty handy

for storing extra food items.

We have kept a rather low profile this week for the fact that I wasn't feeling real well...some kind of a flu bug, probably. We did pull off going shopping on Monday to finish up our two week food supply and 72 hour kit. All the missionaries have always been advised to have enough food in our apartments to last two weeks in case we are required, for some reason, to stay in our homes. Every time we have checked the missionaries apartments we have inventoried their two week food supply to make sure it was up to date. We decided we needed to have everything on the suggested list too. We have plenty of food stored, but were lacking the 6 cartons of shelf stable milk suggested. As for the 72 hour kits, just recently it was suggested that each missionary assemble such a kit in case a quick exit was required. We bought granola bars, water, and a few toiletries and put them into a bag for quick retrieval, if needed. This is all just a precautionary measure for our safety. It is always a good feeling to be prepared in anyway we can.

This is how we were a lot this week....

dressed and waiting for missionaries and

their investigators to show up for their appointments.

Our week also consisted of lots of 'figs'......a missionary term for appointments not kept by investigators. It all started on Tuesday. With no district meeting for which to prepare, and still not feeling too well, we stayed home again.  In the morning, we watched the WCC tournament semi-final game where BYU defeated San Francisco. The rest of the day was spent in lesson prep for our weekly Institute and Seminary lessons. We had an appointment scheduled with Elders Kelly and Shepherd to have a discussion in our home in the early evening. We waited and waited and finally they called us to tell us their investigator showed up late and didn't have time to meet with them. We invited the elders over for fresh baked chocolate chip cookies to soothe their disappointment. They readily accepted.

Elder Shepherd and Elder Kelly of the International Ward

Thursday the sisters called and were so excited that they had finally made contact with Nastia and that she had agreed to meet with them on Saturday at 3:00. We said we would for sure be home to be involved in that discussion.  Sadly, they called on Friday afternoon to say she found out she had to work so she couldn't meet with us. 

Elders Merril and Bugg after a disappointing day

Saturday, though, was the all time 'fig' day. We had discussion appointments at 1:00, 2:15 and 6:00. At 1:30, the other International Elders came by to tell us they had been figged. The sisters then called us to say their 2:15 appointment scheduled with us had fallen through. We were sure the 6:00 meeting would take place as it was with Michael from last week who seemed extremely interested. I baked a cookie pizza for after the discussion. At 6:00, the elders came but they were alone....no Michael. It seems he was not feeling well....so disappointing. The elders ate the cookie pizza, of course. These elders needed a treat as this was the fifth appointment no show for the day. Pretty discouraging but, sadly, that is often the life of our missionaries. 

On a more positive note, later Saturday evening, the zone leaders came by our home to fax some forms to their bishop. They said they had had a very successful day. They said they had met a man as they were street contacting.  He expressed interest and even met with them later in the day for a discussion.  He also committed to come to church on Sunday...so good things are happening as well.  (These elders appreciated the cookie pizza, too.)

Wednesday was a highlight day for us. It was a zone conference as part of a mission tour by the Area President, President Lawrence. Both President and Sister Lawrence spoke to us. Sister Lawrence talked about the House of Israel and how the lost ten tribes are, indeed, scattered through out Eastern Europe. In 2004, the first Patriarchs came to this area and gave 100 blessing each. It was reported that all tribes were represented in those blessings. The job of the missionaries here is to help in the gathering of these tribes of Israel. A pretty motivating talk. Other subjects discussed at the zone conference were 8 steps to successful missionary work and the need to develop relationships with the members of the wards and branches in order for the work to progress with greater success.

Evonne is sitting between the two elders

Wednesday evening, we had a birthday celebration for Evonne, an investigator of Elder Jewkes and Elder Friar. It was his actual birthday and so he called the elders to see if they would hang out with him. They called us to see if they could all come to our home. The elders brought Evonne and Dema, a newly baptized member. We provided a plate of cookies and caramel sundaes which Evonne loved. At the end of the evening we all watched the Restoration video which Evonne loved, too. Elder Friar referred to the evening as a 'miracle meeting.'  Evonne also came to game night on Friday and seemed to have a good time playing a board game with the elders, Misha and his wife, and a three YSA girls.

A pretty intense game......but seemed to be lots of fun

Thursday was hair cut day.  Our hair dresser came by our apartment to cut our hair and brought us a wonderful loaf (more like a disc) of bread. It was delicious. That evening was our Institute lesson.  Misha, our coordinator, sat in on the lesson and afterwards talked to us about what he had observed. He gave us a very positive evaluation and he thanked us for doing what we do.  We are glad we are needed and lighten his job a little.

The picture of flowers

from a darling little girl

We'll end our week with Sunday.  During sacrament meeting the ward choir sang a wonderful musical number. The choir rehearses every Sunday after church and the practice was very evident. The song was so beautifully done. Our sisters and two companionships of elders added their voices to the choir which the choir director must have appreciated. We have some pretty talented singers in our district right now. During Relief Society, two little primary children (maybe 3 years old) came in with pictures of flowers pasted to pieces of paper.  They went around to the Relief Society sisters handing them a picture and saying, "Heavenly Father made these flowers for you." So cute. After our meeting block we got a call from the sisters. They were in need of a place to have a meeting with one of our ward members, Valentina.  Of course, we opened our home to them. Valentina is one of our young singles so it was wonderful to get to know her a little better and to feel of her sweet spirit.  

Valentina, Sister Simmons, and Sister Hunter

Beautiful both physically and spiritually

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

They say in Russia there are three Springs.....first there is the Spring of light where the days begin to get longer. We are now light at 8:00 in the morning until almost 8:00 at night. We love the added hours of sunshine. The second spring is the Spring of water....where the snows all melt.  That must be taking place in other parts of Russia about now but, here in Moscow, we have had almost no snow. They say that last year at this time there were cars still covered with snow and that the temperatures were below freezing. We have had a very mild winter. The third spring is the Spring of green where the leaves begin to bud on the trees. This hasn't happened yet but probably will in a few weeks. We are sure looking forward to that.

Maybe we will have our spring of water after all.....this happened just today

In January, we failed to report about another holiday.  It was the Day of Baptism, having something to do with when Jesus was baptized. It is considered to be a major religious holiday. Many who celebrate this holiday cut holes in the ice on the lakes and rivers and jump in, submerging themselves in the freezing cold water. On Red Square two above ground pools are constructed so people can baptize themselves. One of the pools is ice cold and the other one is a little warmer but is it still outside in the freezing cold weather. This January 19th was one of the coldest days we have had.  It is believed that this process washes away sin and provides protection and healing.  Such an interesting tradition.

We thought this goat on the side of this restaurant wall was interesting and very unique. It attracts many people passing by, for sure.  Every time we pass by we wonder what the name of the restaurant is.....that might explain the goat.

SO MUCH FOR ANOTHER WEEK.....WHERE IS TIME GOING?

FLOWERS, FLOWERS, FLOWERS!

Each week we wonder what will happen that will be interesting enough to include in our blog. This week it has been the Russian's celebration of International Women's Day, March 8.  It is a really big deal here. It began at 5:00 on Friday, when offices closed, and extended through Monday, with Saturday, the 8th, being the exact holiday. The really amazing thing about this holiday is all the flowers purchased and given to women. On Friday, we went out walking in the afternoon and noticed that almost every woman we passed was carrying flowers of some kind, from single flowers to huge bouquets. A lot of men had bouquets of flowers, too, probably taking them to someone special. The sister missionaries said they were given many flowers from random people just because it's a holiday to celebrate all women. Yes, Paul bought me flowers, too 

Even this little girl was carrying flowers

To celebrate Women's Day, our ward combined with the Rechnoy ward to put on a special evening for the women. It was Saturday evening and started out with a short, but favorite 1980's Russian love movie. Then after refreshments (open faced sandwiches as always) were eaten, the brethren, including some of the elders, preformed several musical numbers. They also had a demonstration of Karate defense techniques, a few competition activities involving two teams of women, and a skit. It was such a fun evening....lots of smiles and lots of laughter.  

Elder Eliason sang an original song

Rechnoy elders singing

Our own Elder Davison composed the selection he played.

A really funny skit by two men about a married couple.

.....and our Elder Genys.  Such talent.  He needed a

grand piano to do his piece justice.

The bishop was very proud

of his creation from one

of my recipes.....the three

layer brownies in the pan.

On Sunday, the celebration continued at church.  At the end of Relief Society, the men came in, each with a rose in hand to give to a sister in the ward.  They then gathered in the front of the room and sang a song to us.  They sang 'Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel.' We wondered if this particular song was the best choice to sing to a group of already hard working women, but it was really cute.  They had added hand claps, foot stomps and ugh's during parts of the song. There were lots of smiles in the room for sure. The men also brought in lots of desserts for all to enjoy.  

Our week began by taking Elder Davis and Elder Braun to Shake Shake. Elder Davis was going home on Thursday so we got special permission to take him and his companion out to lunch before he left.  He had really wanted to try the hamburgers at Shake Shack and was thrilled when President Borders said we could take him this one time. They loved the food and we loved being with them.  Elder Davis will be missed.

Tuesday's district meeting this week was a little different. Elder Davis requested a breakfast for his last district meeting lunch before going home. We fixed bacon and scrambled eggs, french toast with maple syrup, sourdough waffles with strawberries and whip cream, and juice. The elders and sisters loved it all and ate almost everything we had cooked. After lunch (or breakfast), the sisters surprised us with an original song written about each of the members of our district.  It was so funny and so sweet. At the end of our meeting, we brought out a fruit pizza to celebrate Elder Braun's birthday. Just a note:  As Elder Friar was dishing up his food he said, "I just love coming here."  That's all the thanks we need. 

The sisters singing their original song with their make shift uke.

It was made out of a box, a tube, and stretched rubber bands.

It was even in tune.

This was a transfer week and we lost two of our elders...Elder Davis (going home) and Elder Genys (going out to Perova).  We come to love the elders and sisters in our district and are always sad when transfers come around.  These two elders will be missed.

Elder Braun's birthday celebration

Wednesday was our last English group for four weeks and Thursday was our first Skype conference with three other CES couples and Igor, an area coordinator. After our trip to Turkey, it was decided that we would gather as a group once a month through Skype to share ideas and be trained by a coordinator. It was a good meeting and will only get better once the technical issues are worked out. We could hear everyone but could only see Igor.  

Before our Institute lesson, we gathered as a senior council to watch some newly produced DVDs that will be used as missionary tools here in Eastern Europe. Most scenes were filmed right here in Moscow and featured many missionaries and stake members with whom we are familiar.  Paul and I were even featured in the DVD about missionary work. Other subjects covered on separate DVDs were families, temples, and family history. Similar DVDs have been used for years as an introduction to the church, but they were all filmed in the US. It has been a dream of President Lawrence's to have DVDs available to which the local people could really relate.  It was touching as we viewed Russian families in their apartments holding family home evenings and missionaries doing service and contacting in areas here in Moscow. These DVDs will be a great way to introduce the gospel to the people in Eastern Europe.

Friday was transfer day. Usually it is on Wednesday but the new elders and sisters didn't come in until Friday morning.  We have felt bad for President Borders and the AP's as they have had to do transfers twice this month.  About two week ago they received word that the visas for the incoming missionaries were not being issued so they were not going to be coming.  With that information, transfers were decided and assignments made. Within two days of making all the calls regarding transfers, they received word that the new missionaries were coming after all. The President and the assistants had to start all over again making new transfer assignments. Doing transfers once every 6 weeks is hard enough so to have to have done them twice in less that a week's time must have been extremely difficult.  Most of the work was done over the telephone as the President was at a mission president conference in Turkey.

 Friday was our game night which was supposed to be a YSA evening to replace the family home evening we used to have on the first Monday of each month.  We were very disappointed as there were only about 10 people in attendance, compared to 30 or so at last month's activity.  We did have two investigators there, one of which came to church the following Sunday. Our YSA council is totally non functioning right now. We don't know exactly what to do as the new Stake Presidency has yet to call a committee to assist our new YSA President.  Hopefully we can get it all resolved before too long.

Saturday afternoon, we had two missionary discussions in our home.....one right after the other.  The first one was with a Michael from Ghana. We think he is really golden. He had been introduced to the church in Ghana but then moved to Moscow. When he found out the church was here in Moscow he contacted the missionaries. During the discussion he committed to read the Book of Mormon. In the prayer that he offered at the end of the meeting, he prayed that he would be able to understand what he read and that he would be able to continue to learn more about the church. He also was at church on Sunday...a good sign. The second discussion was rather short as it had to be done in French.  Elder Merrill speaks a little French and his companion, Elder Bugg, speaks no French.  It was an interesting experience. 

On Sunday, the elders were thrilled with our invitation

to come to our apartment and finish off the cake from

Saturday night's dinner.

The rest of the afternoon was spent fixing dinner and dessert.  We had invited the Piersons over for dinner after the ward party celebrating Women's day.  They used to be a part of the other ward who helped put on the party. We had Cafe Rio's chicken soup and a way good dessert. It was a devil's food chocolate cake with a cookies and cream filling and topped with melted semi sweet chocolate chips. Pretty yummy.

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

Living in Russia, we have come to accept that food items are going to be quite a bit more expensive.  We just buy what we need, most of the time, like these strawberries. We needed them for the sourdough waffles on Tuesday so Paul went to a local fruit market (small store) and paid the equivalent of $14.00 for these two baskets of strawberries. They tasted wonderful on the waffles.

This picture was taken for our granddaughters to let them know that children all over the world love princesses...especially Disney princesses.

This is a bounce house castle in a mall we

where we do our weekly shop.

WE PASSED OUR 8TH MONTH MARK THIS WEEK...

ON WOMEN'S DAY TO BE EXACT.

HARD TO BELIEVE.

SUNSHINE ALL WEEK AND A DR. ZHIVAGO MOMENT...WHAT MORE COULD WE WANT?

All week the sun has been shining here in Moscow. To have a week of sunshine has been very rare during the winter. It is fitting that it happened this week as it is Blini Week, formally known as Maslenitsa Week. It is a week long celebration where much feasting takes place, especially on blinis. A blini is a large, thin, round pancake eaten when stuffed with meats or fruits and jams. It is said to represent the sun because of its shape and its warmth hot off the griddle. The Russians celebrate Blini Week in preparation for the first day of Spring which is March 1. There are booths selling blinis as well as hanging straw dolls. These dolls are effigies of Lady Maslenitsa who symbolizes winter. They tell us that these dolls are burned on Sunday, the last day of the celebration, in order to chase away winter. We hope this all means that Spring is really on its way.  We must record a little tender mercy from the Lord. After Church on Sunday, we talked about jumping on the metro and going to Red Square to see the straw dolls before they were burned.  I really wanted a picture of one for this blog. For no known reason in particular, we decided to go straight home instead. The next day we read that there had been over 10,000 demonstrators at Red Square on Sunday.  We were so glad we were inspired to stay home.

Pretty much like Dr. Zhivago....only this was taken

in front of a picture canvas at the campsite.

On the troika (or horse drawn sleigh)

Our Doctor Zhivago moment came Saturday when a group of senior couples traveled to the city of Sergei Posad to spend the day. After an hour and a half van ride, we arrived at a lady's home where we were greeted with a stack of blinis to eat with jam (very appropriate for blini week). She hurried us out the door to our van so we could drive into the nearby woods for a troika (horse drawn sleigh) ride (also a common tradition for blini week). There, we were met with two sleighs and lots of snow. After piling into the sleighs and adjusting the blanket to keep warm, the horses pulled us through the woods to a special campsite. Here we enjoyed roasting sausages (much like an American hot dog) while getting warm around a campfire.  We each took turns sliding down a hill on a tube and, then, several of us tried our hand at sawing a log, using a two man saw. Before we left to return to the lady's home for dinner, we were taken on a longer ride in the troikas.  At one time we came to a wide open, snow covered field. We could just picture what it would have been like in the Dr. Zhivago movie to take off speeding in the sleigh across that open space (hence the Dr. Zhivago moment).  Sadly we didn't take off at break neck speed there but on the return trip the drivers sped up the horses for a fun ride back into the campsite. 

Roasted hot dogs....even in Russia

Down he goes!

Success...we sawed it off with a two man saw.

Trying to knock each other off the plank

The Dr. Zhivago moment

The stack of small blinis for breakfast

Back at the lady's home we were treated to an authentic Russian dinner of cold cut meats and cheeses, borsh soup and pork stew.  It was all very tasty. After dinner, the lady gave us a brief historical sketch of the city and the beautiful monastery complex in the town.  

The borsh which is beet soup

The pork stew

Of course, before returning to Moscow, we toured the monastery grounds with its many beautiful cathedrals. This is the place where the first monastery was built in Russia. It is said that the Russian Orthodox religion grew out of this city. We entered one cathedral where the founder of the monastery is buried. His casket was made of many tons of silver. Most beautiful and very sacred to the true Russian Orthodox. This city is considered the home of the Orthodox Church and out of respect for this, there are no missionaries sent to proselyte in this city.

The famous blue domed cathedral

The original cathedral on the monastery grounds where

the founder is buried

Other highlights of our week were two missionary discussions, one on Monday and one on Tuesday.  Monday evening, the International Ward elders brought over Hardy. He is from Madagascar and speaks 4 languages - Russian, English, French, and the native language of Madagascar. He is here going to school.  We were impressed with the discussion the elders gave and even more impressed with their 100% obedience. When the discussion was over it was a little after 9 in the evening.  The elder's curfew is 9:30 and so they passed up our offer of cookies to be home on time.

Tuesday, after our district meeting, was one of the best discussions of which we have been privileged to be a part.  This was Nastia's first discussion with the sisters and it was a picture perfect first discussion.  The spirit was so strong as testimonies were born of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Nastia even shed a few tears at the end of the discussion. We hope she will remember what she felt and want to learn more. She did commit to read the Book of Mormon and to meet with the sisters again. She has been in our prayers.



Back to Monday - Monday's shopping brought about two great finds - an attachment for our vacuum cleaner and Russia's answer to jello. We have a horrible vacuum cleaner that doesn't pick up much of anything on our carpet. We decided to buy a new attachment to see if that would help the suction strength. It's not like at home, but much better than the old one. We also found a stiff broom which is so much nicer than the one we have been using.

Cookies made from the Russian version of Jello

We had heard that Russia had a jello type product so at the store we found something that looked like it could be a type of gelatin. (Thank goodness for pictures on packages as we can't read the labels.) With what we purchased, I made jello cookies and they tasted almost like the ones made with jello from home.  A good find.


Tuesday was district meeting.  We served chicken and broccoli and orange rolls with cream puffs for dessert. We had to serve something we could send home with our sisters because they were fasting that day as part of our zone's month long fast. (Our turn came again on Wednesday at 6 pm.) Before anyone was served, we set aside food for the sisters to take home so they could eat after 6. They really appreciated having food ready for them at the end of their fast.

Sasha giving this restaurant worker

information about English group

and the missionaries phone number.

Wednesday, we took Sasha to Shake Shack again.  He is so good to help us out by meeting Paul at our landlord's bank and depositing our rent in her account.  While at Shake Shack, we had a missionary opportunity. One of the workers came up to us to ask us how we liked the food. He said it in very broken English. Sasha took it upon himself to tell him about our English group discussions and to give him the address and the phone number of Elders Davis and Braun. We wished we would have had an English group prig (handout) to give to him. We will take one to him as soon as the new ones are ready for the next 8 week cycle of lessons.  


At English group that night I was visiting with a regular attender, Kate.  She was telling me about Women's Day coming up on March 8th and how everyone buys flowers for the women in their lives. I mentioned to her that Paul was not a big flower giver and her comment was, "How does anyone survive without flowers."  At the end of the evening she immediately came up to Paul to persuade him that he needed to buy me flowers for the following Saturday.  

We had to say good bye to Sister Pope, a favorite sister missionary,

who has been working with us in our discussion group

each Wednesday for the past 2 months.  She will be

going home before our next English group. 

We will miss her.

Our board display to help students

understand more fully the meaning of the allegory.

Thursday was our Institute/Pathway gathering night. We taught the Olive tree allegory. We were so grateful for a church video that did a wonderful job helping to visualize each visit of the master to the trees and helping us all realize the time period when each visit took place. We all have a much greater understanding of that allegory now. One of the students came up to us afterwards and said, "In Russia we have a saying that when something is explained very well, it has been put on the shelf." She said we had put this allegory on the shelf for her.

After studying for our lesson with Isaac on Friday, we decided to go shopping and out to lunch. We went to a store that has always had flour tortillas and they didn't have any. We can't find them anywhere anymore which makes us very sad.  

After teaching seminary to Isaac, we went to game night.  We had an investigator there who should be baptized soon. We love the opportunity to get to know investigators from other districts too.

This then brings us back to Saturday and our Troika ride.  A great week again.

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

As we walk to the metro we pass several planter boxes along the walk way and around the metro building. They are filled with colored pieces of bark. Our supervisor, Misha, says it is for color spots during the winter.  It will be interesting to see if annuals are planted in the boxes this summer. We hope flowers will be planted as it will make the area very beautiful.

Often as we walk, we find people playing instruments and sometimes singing.  We have seen (and heard) a group of five playing jazz complete with a portable piano, a man playing bag pipes, and this man playing a trombone...to name just a few.  We were touched by this group who were singing. At least two of them were blind.  We only wish we would have had some coins to give them but Paul never carries them in his pocket.