MANY MEALS MAKE MARVELOUS MEMORIES

As the title of this entry suggests, this week was a week of many meals - our district meal, a meal at Johnny Rockets with Sasha, a meal with an investigator, a meal with two elders, a meal with a new member and our sisters, and a meal with a few senior couples....with many marvelous memories being created in the process.

Ready for the oven

Let's start with the meal for our District this week.  As reported last week, we finally found cottage cheese at the store, so we decided to serve lasagna for lunch on Tuesday. We served a green salad and bread sticks with it and then for dessert a Boston cream pie (really a creamed filled yellow cake dripping with chocolate icing). It was Elder Jewkes' birthday so a candle was put in the middle of the cake to celebrate. The only problem was that Elder Jewkes was not at lunch so we took pictures of us all blowing out the candle so he would know he was thought of on his birthday.

Elder Jewkes' birthday cake

The sweet sisters brought me this rose and the nicest note of appreciation.

Notice the Wendy's bag on

 the table.

Wednesday, we took Sasha to Johnny Rockets for lunch.  He had helped us again this month to pay our rent so in return we treated him to lunch as we always do. This time we decided to try a new place. It was a fifties type diner but the hamburger I had was not very tasty and Sasha said his sloppy Joe was nothing more than chopped up hamburger with no sauce or spice. Not a real good experience.  Paul, on the other hand, loved his hamburger. He stopped at Wendy's and bought 2 thirty nine ruble hamburgers and brought them into Johnny Rockets.  He was a happy man.  

This is Piero and 

little Seth

Friday, after a discussion, we prepared a lunch for Elders Bug and Merrill and their investigator, Piero. It seems Piero has run onto some hard luck here and has no money, no job, and no place to stay.  He was very appreciative of the meal of leftover lasagna and bread sticks.....and we were glad to have the lasagna eaten.  Raymond's wife came with her children to interpret for the elders.  They left before lunch.

Later that evening, Elders Hawks and Wineheimer came by with a couple of Jehovah Witness young men for a discussion. We couldn't understand a lot of what was going on but we could tell the spirit was absolutely not present. The two men pulled out their bibles and their printed list of arguments against our religion and preceded to question the elders. We were so proud of the elders as they did not lose their cool and just kept bearing testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel and the Book of Mormon.  We were glad we had set a deadline for the discussion to be over or it would have gone on way too long. The elders stayed around and joined us for a meal of enchiladas and tacos. They were glad for the food and we appreciated being able to talk with them about what had transpired in the discussion. It was then off to game night.

Strawberry slush to begin the meal of Teriyaki  chicken

and fried rice.

Saturday evening we had Corina, a relatively new member and dear friend, and the sisters to our home for dinner. Corina had wanted to have us all over to her home for dinner but the sisters would not have been able to go as Corina lives out of their area. It was decided a meal at our home would be the solution. It was a delightful evening. Corina is a vivacious lady and kept us talking and laughing all evening. She and the sisters especially got a kick out of Paul and I trying to pronounce the months of the year in Russian. It was a fun evening that ended with a beautiful spiritual thought given by the sisters.

John's birthday cake that we brought on the metro with us.

It wasn't like we could load it into a car and bring it.

Lots of people looked at us funny as we carried this in

a  mailing box wrapped up in a plastic bag.

And finally on Sunday, we were invited to share a meal with Elder and Sister Jensen. It was his birthday so they invited ourselves and two other couples to their home for dinner.  We brought a cake and candles to wish Jon (Elder Jensen) a happy birthday. One of the couples in attendance, Elder and Sister Steel, arrived in Moscow only a few weeks ago, so it was great to get to know them. This is their third mission and they have only been married to each other for 10 years. Quite amazing. 

Transporting the cake....very carefully

That's it for the special memories of the many meals served and eaten this week. Now for the rest of the week's happenings.......


On Wednesday evening, the senior couples gathered in the institute room to watch a movie.  One of the senior couples was able to obtain a copy of "The Saratov Approach," a movie about two elders who were kidnapped here in Russia about 15 years ago.  It was a wonderful movie and very true to the story of what really happened. Luckily the elders were let go without much harm but the trials they endured while in captivity were not easy.  Many prayers were offered from around the world on behalf of these elders.....and the Lord answered those prayers in their safe release.  We all brought goodies to munch on during the movie.  A great evening.

The spiritual cardiogram 

that we handed out

Thursday was our Institute class and Pathway gathering night. Our lesson focused especially on Alma 5 where Alma asks many important question to help us understand where our hearts are in relationship to God and Jesus Christ. We had some wonderful discussions with the students. At the end of the lesson, we challenged the students to take a spiritual cardiogram....rating themselves on 6 of the questions Alma asks.


Sunday, I had to speak in church.  After dinner with Corina on Saturday, I worked in the office preparing my talk while Paul was in the living room watching several episodes of the Honeymooners. He was laughing so hard that sometimes it was hard to concentrate on my talk preparations. He loves Jackie Gleason. The talk was on the Savior and the resurrection. I read several conference talks before knowing exactly what I needed to say. The interesting thing about giving a talk in a Moscow ward is that you only have to prepare for half the time allotted. You have to leave time for the translator to repeat what you say. I was told to take about 12 minutes so I only dared prepare for about 8 minutes worth of material.  Hopefully, my testimony of the Savior and the great gift He gave to us was felt by the members of the ward.

Two other things happened this week that made it a special week.  On Tuesday, the office elders brought us a small package.  When we opened it up we found a 2 pound bag of precious brown sugar. It was sent by dear friends, Bob and Jan. We were touched by their thoughtfulness. The brown sugar will be treasured and used only in special recipes.




The other thing that happened was the opportunity to see our granddaughters sing at their voice recital.  Andrea sent us videos (via email) of their wonderful performances.  It was like being right there with them.  We loved hearing their beautiful voices.

Our front row seats at our granddaughters' recital

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

This past week was a bill paying week for us. We pay the rent to our landlady by depositing money into her account. Other bills, like the internet and our phones, are paid at local machines. We keep having to find different machines to do this as often the business changes their machines or completely closes down. Paying bills is always an interesting time of the month.

We have known since we arrived here that whistling in public was not an acceptable thing to do. During our visit with Corina this week we finally came to understand why. It seems that if you whistle you will lose all your wealth. We guess their thinking is if you are whistling you are not working. If you are not working, you are not earning money so you will eventually lose all your money. Another interesting superstition.

We have been told that if you see something in a store that you need or want that you better buy it right then because it may not be there when you return. Such was the case of a small electric griddle I had my eye on buying for several weeks. One week it was gone and they haven't had another one in stock since. The same thing happened with applesauce....one week there were several jars but for several months now there have been none. This week, I was fearing that was the case when I needed mozzarella cheese for the lasagne.  There are several kinds of mozzarella cheeses available but most are too soft to grate. A few weeks ago I finally found a good one, but when I went to pick some up in the cheese section on Monday, it wasn't there. I was getting ready to change the menu for district meeting when I happened to spot one small block of the kind of mozzarella cheese for which I was looking.  It was on a cheese cart where a woman was restocking cheeses onto the case.  It was the only mozzarella cheese on the whole cart among many different kinds of cheeses. I picked it up and asked the lady where I could find more of that kind of cheese.  She showed me where it was. It was a little miracle that I just happened to spot that one little block of mozzarella cheese on the cart.  I bought lots of it to freeze for future use. 

THE WEEKS ARE FLYING BY 

AS THERE IS ALWAYS SO MUCH TO DO