SATURDAY'S ACTIVITY A HIGHLIGHT OF OUR WEEK...........5 MURDERS, 15 RECIPES OF POTATO SOUP, AND 50+ COSTUMED YOUNG SINGLES

We must begin our blog for the week with the amazing young single activity held Saturday evening. It was advertised as a 'Night at the Movies."  Everyone was invited to come in a costume of a character in the movies.  The evening was advertised as a dinner followed by an activity and dance. It began at 5 with a light dinner of potato 
soup, bread and vegetables. (Yes, we made the 15 recipes of soup - enough for 70 bowlfuls). Over 65 young singles enjoyed the evening.

A spiritual thought was next on the agenda, as it always is at any activity. For this thought, a table was brought out that was filled with delicious treats - candies, cakes, fruit, etc. Someone was asked to come up who might want to sample these wonderful foods. Alona volunteered and, as soon as she came to the table, Masha and Sasha taped a bamboo pole to her arm so she could not bend it.  She was then told she could eat anything on the table but only using the arm she couldn't bend. She tried to throw grapes into the air and catch them in her mouth with no luck. A second person was brought up and his arm was also immobilized. Of course, he couldn't feed himself either but they could feed each other, which was the point of the activity....we all need each other.  Very clever.

Such clever costumes

At this point, everyone was given an identity of a person in a town. They were given things they should do during the the evening and 5 persons were told that, at a certain time, they would be murdered so they would need to pretend to be dead. After a few minutes of everyone getting to know each other's characters, the lights were turned down and the dance began. It wasn't too long before the lights went back up. Someone had been murdered and was on the floor, playing dead. A police officer was on the scene telling everyone of all the evidence found on the body. The young singles' job was to ask questions of each other to try to determine who the murderer might be. Throughout the dance, this scene repeated itself 4 other times (total of 5 murder scenes) and each time more evidence was given. After each murder, the people could bring accusations against individual town's people to a court judge, so everyone could hear the evidence presented in each case. It sounds a little confusing but it was so much fun. Of course, the murderer was announced at the end and the solution had quite a twist to it. It seems the delivery man's wife was angry with the baker's dog because the dog would always chase her. She decided to put poison in the dog's meat which her husband would deliver to the baker's shop. It turns out that everyone that had died had eaten something from the bakery. (Pastry with meat in them is a big thing in Russia, so can you see where this is heading?) The baker was using the meat, supposedly purchased for the dog, in the pastries she sold to the public. Interesting but very clever. You can tell it was a successful evening when, by morning, several young singles had posted pictures of the event on Facebook. We were amazed at how smoothly the evening went and even more amazed at some of the costumes worn.

Our fearless leader and his wife

Lena's looking a little like Johnny Depp

Just a few of the great costumes worn Saturday evening.

 

Stanislav is in the blue shirt and Dmitry is in the yellow shirt

Another highlight of our week was visiting the home of two of our Pathway students. They are brothers and have wanted us to come to their home and meet their parents. Sunday evening we boarded the metro and met Dmitry and Stanislav Dolgov at the end of the orange line, from which they walked us to their apartment. We had a wonderful visit with them and their parents and came away in awe of their dedication to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It seems that all four of them were on a mission at the same time - the brothers in the Ukraine mission and the parents in the Baltic States mission. The parents left for their mission one month after the boys and served 23 months. The brothers served 24 months so they arrived back home about the same time. Once home in the Samara area, they decided to move to Moscow, as a family, so the boys could start the Pathway program this past September. They have been members of the church for 10 years and obviously know the meaning of sacrifice and consecration. We are so glad we had the opportunity of visiting with them in their home. Their mom served us a Russian cheese cake and a lemon tort. I took a plate of cookies to add to the fare.  It was a wonderful evening even though everything we said had to translated for the parents, who speak very little English.  We will invite them to our home before we leave.

Our International Ward Sisters.

Sister Miller with her beautiful red hair,

 has a new companion, Sister Grover.

They are both sister trainer sisters, now

Other happenings of the week included 5 discussions with investigators - three in our home and 2 at the church. The international sisters brought three different people to our home, each with with a different story. We met Gema on Tuesday. She is from the Philippines and has been here for 2 years but 6 1/2 years away from her family in the Philippines. Before Moscow, she was in Hong Kong but came here hoping for higher wages. So far it hasn't happened as she can only find part time work. Thursday we met Gerilyn, also from the Phillippines. She is a nanny here and has a strong belief in Jesus Christ. When she was younger, she was instrumental in bringing her family to Christ by introducing them to a church in her hometown. Before starting to go to church, her family was very dysfunctional and her father drank a lot. She has seen a wonderful change in their family since coming to Christ.  She seems very receptive to the sister's message. Friday, the sisters brought Jennifer to our home for a first discussion.  She is from Nigeria and is here going to school and working.

Paul was involved with the 2 discussions at the church, one on Friday night during our game night and one on Saturday during the YSA activity.  Both these gentlemen are from Africa.  Baseel has been to our home before and needs to come to church three times before he can be baptized. Maybe that will happen before we leave.

Tuesday was district meeting.  We got a kick out of one of the elders who spent the time folding these candy wrappers into little birds.  He speaks very little English so this was his way of passing the time as the meeting is always conducted in English.

That night we made dinner for Sasha, Vitally, and Artur. We told Sasha we would have him to our home, instead of taking him to a restaurant, as a way of thanking him for helping us pay our rent every month.  We invited his roommate, Artur, and Sasha wanted to invite Vitally. We served teriyaki chicken and fried rice and the boys said they were in heaven. You can imagine, three young singles, living on their own, and their eating habits. A good solid meal was very much appreciated.

Wednesday, we made what may be our final trip up to Metropolis Mall. We had heard that Stockman's would be closing the doors of 20 of their stores in Russia. They are a department store based in Finland or Sweden. We decided we needed to stock up on the things we buy from there....Rice Krispies, marshmallows, tomato soup, Bullseye barbecue sauce, and cheddar cheese.  We are sad for our replacements if they do, indeed, close that particular store.

Wednesday night was English group at which we taught about Jesus Christ as a role model to follow.  We handed out copies of the Book of Mormon and challenged the participants to read 2 Nephi 29 by the next meeting.  Quite a difference from the times when we could make no reference to the church or the gospel.  We are getting better each week monitoring how the discussion precedes.

Thursday at Institute we taught something we had never taught before. The scripture block was Secions 25 to 29 and included the second coming of Christ, the armor of God and the revelation given to Emma Smith.  Since the second coming of Christ will be taught in a couple of weeks, we decided to focus on Section 25 given to Emma Smith. We talked about what it meant to be 'elect' and then related that to Emma's life. We focused on the counsel she was given, including the call of selecting hymns. We related it all to our lives toady, specifically discussing the importance of women in Heavenly Father's plan and the worth of good music. We felt good about the spirit that was present and feel the students went away with something to apply to their lives.


Friday, we had a little extra time so we went back to Evonne's shop to pick up some gift bags for all the matryachka dolls we have brought from him. We also purchased a beautiful, hand painted tray. It will look wonderful in our home.

Evonne has many customers who come to his shop

because he will give them a good deal and he can 

communicate with them.  He speaks

fluent English and French and, of course, Russian.

Paul was such a good sport

to peel all those potatoes.

And then there was the soup.......lots and lots of soup.  We made 15 batches, starting with the first 5 on Wednesday then 5 on Friday and 5 on Saturday.  Paul was the chief potato peeler. He must have peeled, at least, 30 pounds of potatoes. We were both glad when that cooking assignment was over. The soup tasted wonderful and the young singles downed every drop of it on Saturday night. We will have to post the recipe on Facebook as many asked for the recipe that night.

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

These don't look burnt but they are as

hard as a rock.  YUK!

Since we have been here, Paul has missed the thin and a crispy, hard and almost burnt cookies he used to get with his lunch every Friday at the temple. Well, this week, I accommodated his longing for such a cookie when I forget about setting the timer on one tray of cookies and our oven changed temperatures, all on its own, on a second tray. Paul has been in heaven......thank goodness I had enough decent cookies to take with us to the Dolgov's home Sunday evening.

We were walking to a restaurant a couple of weeks ago and saw this car climbing up the side of this building and then coming back down,  and doing this over and over again. It was obviously an advertisement for KIA cars. It sure caught our attention and several other people as they passed by.

ANOTHER WEEK HAS PASSED WAY TOO QUICKLY