TWO HOLIDAYS AND TWO BAD HEAD COLDS .

This was a week of holidays...Knowledge Day on Monday and the Day of the City on Saturday. Russians have lots of holidays and love every one of them. 

Knowledge Day is always the first day of September and is the first day of school for the children. The children all dress in their nicest clothes and the girls fasten big white bows in their hair. They always take flowers to give to their teachers when they meet them. The day is not a full day nor a regular curriculum day. The children come to school and assemble together to listen to songs, poetry and inspirational speeches. It also becomes a day when parents and guests can visit the school in an open house type setting. There is a tradition in each school that one first grade girl is placed on the shoulders of an 11th grade boy and they parade around the school while the girl rings a bell. This is to signify the 'first bell' of the year. As we were out shopping on this day, the malls were very crowded with children and their parents as well as teenagers just hanging out. We saw so many darling little children dressed in their school uniforms and girls with white bows in their hair. We wished we could have taken pictures of a few of them but, not speaking the language, we didn't know how to ask if we could....hence the above picture taken from the internet showing this day.

A group of very talented male singers

Saturday was the Day of the City. Every city in Russia has a special day that celebrates the birthday of that city. Moscow celebrated its 867th birthday on Saturday. We understand there were celebration activities taking place all over the city. In our neighborhood, as we were out walking, we noticed two different venues where performers were entertaining. The one in the picture was in the park, right outside our metro station. All night there were fireworks and lots of partying. Just outside our window, we could hear people having a good time and when we walked to church on Sunday, we could see the results of their holiday celebrations. That is why the missionaries were instructed to be in by 8:30 Saturday night....safety is always the first concern of the Mission President. 

On our walk to church there were liqueur bottles

and cigarette butts all over.

NOW FOR THE WEEK'S HAPPENINGS IN BETWEEN THE HOLIDAYS.......

At Metropolis Mall

Monday was our shopping day. We decided to go to two different malls to find items needed for the week. While we were in one of the malls, Elders Genys and Denkers called to see if Paul would talk with one of their investigators. It was Felix...a young man with whom Paul had visited in a park, a few weeks ago, with Elder Genys. It was a rather short but good conversation.  An interesting way to get a member present meeting. Clever thinking Elders! 

Later that night, after some institute lesson preparation time, Elders Shepherd and Jepsen called to see if they could come by with Neen and teach a new investigator from Bangledesh. An hour later than expected, they called to say their investigator didn't show up but asked if they could come by to teach Neen a lesson on callings in the church.  Of course, we agreed. Come to find out, Elder Shepherd was on a split with Elder Memmott so they taught Neen. Before everyone left Elders Jepsen and Hermansen showed up so we had a big group for cookies after the lesson. Elder Memmott was so excited. His comment was, "Oh a real cookie!"  This was the first time he had been to our home.

On Tuesday, besides district meeting, Paul was on the computer most of the day doing Pathway and institute things...some of which included reminding the four potential students of their English test for the next night and sending out 39 emails to potential institute students. We are hoping to have a few to our Institute class which starts on Thursday. This year we are starting institute three week before pathway. Our coordinator wants us to correlate our teaching schedule with his....teaching the same lesson in the same course of study in the same week. It might be an interesting year.  

Our sister dropped by our

home to work up a power

point presentation for the

MLC meeting the next day.

They really enjoyed the

rice krispie treats we shared

with them

Wednesday, we gave the English Proficiency Test to four potential Pathway students. We needed at least two of them to pass in order to be eligible to start a new cohort this semester. We could tell two of them were really struggling during the test and thought a third didn't do too well either. As we were grading the tests we got so worried as the first two did not pass as we expected. We graded the next two and to our amazement both scored passing marks. The one we thought may have been struggling got one of the highest scores on this particular test. The test is not easy. We tested 15 and luckily 10 passed. As soon as Paul entered the scores into the Pathway system, our students went from a waiting for more students status to admitted. Ten was the lucky number.

Issuing the last 4 tests for this semester and

praying the whole time that at least two would pass.

Bag and cart all packed

ready to haul lunch up to

the mission office

Thursday was the big lunch up at the mission office for the Mission Leadership Committee. All the zone leaders and sister trainers were brought in from the outlying areas for this meeting.  Along with the assistants and office elders, we served about 25. This was when we served what we called our 'miracle barbecue pulled pork sandwiches.'  We gave them that label because of the miracles we experienced finding the celery and the exact barbecue sauce needed to make the pulled pork. The elders and sisters got a kick out of our story as to how that meal came to be.

The mission leadership enjoying their lunch break.

Our Plan of Salvation display

That night we taught our first institute class for the year. Our new course of study is the Doctrine and Covenants but we were asked to include a review of the Plan of Salvation. We did it with the overall theme of choice...we chose to follow God's plan in heaven before we came to earth and, now, the choices we make in this life on earth will determine our destiny in the eternities. Our challenge was for them to choose to read the Doctrine and Covenants this year. It is the book revealed just for us in our day and contains directions on the right choices we must make. Much to our surprise we had 9 in attendance. We love being back into teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yummy way to 'feed a cold.'

Friday was when we both became rather miserable with head colds. We have been very fortunate to have had only one other cold since coming to Russia. After spending a pretty low key morning in our apartment, we decided to obey the old adage 'feed a cold and starve a fever.'  We fed our cold with a Shake Shack burger and fries and then a cup of Tuiti Fruiti yogurt for dessert. It felt good to be out and about for a while.

We loved this demonstration used by Elder Memmott

to show the line of authority in the organization 

of the church....the Starburst is the prophet,

the M&M represents the apostles,

the first line of peanuts are the stake presidents, and

the cashew is a bishop with the last two peanuts 

representing the ward members.

Clever use of what is available.

On our way home, we stopped at the grocery store and ran into Elders Hoffman and St. Clair. They were meeting another set of elders who would be passing them a new investigator. We asked if they wanted to come to our home instead of going to the church. They readily agreed so, 15 minutes later, we were involved in another missionary discussion. This was about the organization of the church, especially the importance of boundaries and attending the ward or branch in which you live. Olig was the investigator's name and he readily accepted the change when he said, "If I have to go to a different branch, then I will." 

When our young singles began this 

board game we took our leave.

Friday night we left for game night hoping to be there only a short time as, by this time, we really didn't feel very well. We got to the institute room and found that a YSA activity had been announced at Tuesday's institute class for this night to be held there in the institute room. When about 10 young adults had arrived, they had a spiritual thought, refreshments, and visited for a while. When they started playing a board game, we asked them to lock up the room when they finished their game and we left to go home and go to bed.

Saturday, we still didn't feel real well but couldn't just sit around.  We decided it would be a good day to go to Ismylava market and purchase a few of the things we want to bring home for ourselves. I am especially excited about a beautiful wooden, hand painted Santa which we bought. He will look wonderful in our living room with the collection of Santas we put out every Christmas.

Nasia gave me this Russian made

scarf as a gift.  She is such dear friend.

Sunday, Nastia came to church to say good bye to us. She is leaving to go the school at BYU Idaho in Rexburg, Idaho. We are so excited for her. This is exactly what she needs in her life right now. We were glad she came by to say good bye to us. We had a short, by nice visit with the promise we would invite her to our home in Utah after our mission.

Paul quickly getting on his

missionary attire when

invited to participate

in the Skype discussion.

Later Sunday night, Elders Genys and Denkers came by for another Skype meeting. They invited Paul in on the end of the discussion so he could bear his testimony about the importance of reading the scriptures. Paul used a little different approach to challenge the investigator to be baptized. When Paul had finished his testimony, the investigator made the comment that Paul was his dad. Paul said, "If I am your dad then you are my son and you are supposed to do what I tell you to do."  Paul then told him he wanted him to be baptized. Everyone laughed and got a kick out of that baptismal challenge.

The elders enjoying chocolate chip cookies and milk

before leaving to go home for the night.

A super ending to a great week, even with bad head colds.

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

On our way to shop on Monday we noticed the grassy area of this park was covered with pigeons. We then saw this man feeding them. He wasn't just throwing bread crumbs to them on the ground.  He was letting them eat right out of his hand.  We, too, love to feed our pigeon friends that come to our kitchen window.

Yeah for Burger King!!!

Burger King, at the mall where we shop every Monday, finally came on board with the American tradition of self dispensed soda pop. We have not found another place in Moscow that allows the customer to fill their own cups with soda pop. We felt right at home...as much ice as we wanted and the ability to return to the pop machine as often as we desired. We only filled our cups up once but at least the option was there. Way to go Burger King.  

IS IT TIME TO START THE COUNT DOWN TO COMING HOME?

15 WEEKS....CAN'T EVEN GET OUR MINDS AROUND THAT YET.