POLICE AT OUR DOOR AGAIN!!!!

About three weeks after arriving in Moscow, we had the police pounding on our door in the middle of the night. This week, two weeks before we leave, the police were at our door once again.  At least this time, it was in the afternoon.  But even then it is a scary thing to open your door to a policeman.  He didn't speak any English but finally said 'passport.'  We got out our cop stoppers (a copy of our passports - you never want to hand the police your actual passport) and Paul gave his to the policeman. He looked at it and then started going on about something else. It was all in Russian so we had no idea what more he wanted.  The only thing we could do, at this point, was to call Luba at the mission office. She is our emergency contact in situations like this. The only problem is that she doesn't speak any English either.  To Luba on the phone, Paul said the Russian equivalent of Elder and Sister Millar - POLICE....and handed the phone to the policeman. Luba must have understood what might be happening as she talked to him for several minutes. Finally, the policeman handed the phone back to us, said 'spaceeba.' (the Russian thank you) and left.  All the time he was at the door, I was saying a prayer that we would be safe and not hauled off to the police station, as has been known to happen to a few missionaries. We really don't know what the visit was all about but we found out we needed to take a copy of our lease to the guard at the church building for the policeman to pick up the next morning. We think there must have been a complaint about our elders and sisters knocking on doors in our building on their way to our apartment. The tenants obviously are well aware that Mormon missionaries live in apartment 13, so when younger missionaries started knocking on their doors they connected us to them. We live in a small apartment building with only 24 apartments in the whole building. More than likely some tenants were contacted duplicate times and didn't like that.  We have put out the word not to contact in this building anymore as we don't want to get evicted or cause any problems for the new couple coming.

The rest of the week was wonderful. It started out on Monday with an incredible evening spent with the sisters and Lada. It was an evening of many miracles. The first miracle was that the sisters were impressed on Sunday to ask if Lada could meet with us.  Miracle two was that it was the only evening, all week, that we were available to have them in our home. When Lada arrived she had just found out that the bank, with whom she had interviewed, could not hire her due to the board's decision not to expand hiring. She has been out of work for several months and so she was very sad. To have this meeting scheduled so we could lift her spirits was another miracle.  The fourth miracle happened when the sister presented a well prepared message for Lada. The spirit was so strong and the message was just what Lada needed to help her. Miracle number five....this evening would be the last we would be able to be with Lada in our home as, on Saturday, she would be moving home to Ryazan to live with her Mom until she finds employment. The Lord knew we all needed to be together on this night.

These sisters love Lada as much as we do.

After the spiritual thought, we taught Lada how to "slam" with hot chocolate. The sisters couldn't find the right kind of cookies so they bought Kit Kats and they worked just fine.  Lada loved the hot chocolate as well as the Kit Kats. We, then, sang Christmas carols and watched the new LDS Christmas video, 'The Gift.' Before everyone left, Paul was able to give Lada a special blessing. It was the perfect ending to a very meaningful evening. When we spoke to Lada later in the week, she said she would always remember this evening as one of the most special nights in her life. It definitely will be a highlight experience of our mission.

Saying good bye, with Lada all

decked out in her mink coat. 

Tuesday morning was spent in preparing our lesson and deep cleaning our apartment. Paul was so good to get up and dust above the kitchen cabinets and vacuum the window screens.  That afternoon we jumped on the metro to go to the mission office for district meeting. Half of our district had gone on their visa trips and wouldn't be back from the airport until around 4 in the afternoon. To meet at the mission office was the most convenient place for them all. We wanted to present them with their Christmas gifts and attend this last meeting before all the changes of transfer week took place. After the meeting, we had planned to meet Sasha at TGI Fridays to treat him to dinner before we left but he called, at the last minute, and said he couldn't get away from work. Because we had both been thinking all day about the Jack Daniel ribs we were going to order, we decided to go ahead and have dinner there alone.  So Yummy!!!

Elder Stebbing in the Christmas spirit

On Wednesday, while I typed the outline for our Institute lesson, Paul washed down all the walls of the apartment. We are determined that this apartment will look very clean when we leave. That evening we attended our next to the last English group.  We are so impressed with the Goodells.  They are the senior couple who replaced our area CES couple, the PIersons.  Because several of the CES couples in East Europe Area take part in an English group, they wanted to see what it is all about....especially with the new gospel curriculum. Our discussion went very well so it was a good sample for them to observe.

Elder St. Clair, Alexander, and Elder Folkman

Thursday was the big day with the police coming.  He arrived at our door just after a discussion with our Elders and Alexander who is scheduled to be baptized at the end of the month.  He is a great young man whom we hope to get involved in the young singles' program. We are sad we will not be there for his baptism.

Getting ready for our

presentation

We were in charge of the presentation for our senior council meeting on Thursday night.  We talked about our mission and the different thing in which we have been involved. We shared some stories including our two visits by the police.  We also shared the many joys we have felt as we have worked with our missionaries and our young singles.  To give the other senior couples an idea of the kinds of things the young singles have been doing, we showed a slide show of some of the pictures we have taken at each activity for the past 17 months.  We are convinced that we have been serving in the choicest assignment possible for a senior couple.  We are so grateful for the experiences that have been ours and the many wonderful friendships we have developed with these young singles and missionaries.

We raced upstairs, at the completion of our presentation, to teach Institute.  We took a different approach to our lesson this week and showed videos for each concept we were teaching.  It was all under the heading of 'The Lord Requires the Heart and a Willing Mind.'  Our scripture block suggested 5 principles that require our whole heart and our willing mind in order to live them completely - paying tithing, not idling our time away, developing our talents, having reverence for the Lord's name, and forgiving others. The Goodells attended our class and seemed to enjoy our lesson and being with our wonderful students.  We followed Institute with our Pathway gatherings, getting home around 10 PM after a very busy, but fulfilling day.

Friday started out to be a slow day so we went to Red Square to find a gift for our friend, Karina, to let her know how much we love her and will miss her.  We found the perfect bear (a bear often represents Russia) who is holding a heart..... Russia will always hold our heart because of the many special friends we have made, like Karina. 
We came home to 2 sets of missionaries needing to use our computers and the International sisters bringing Caddice over for a discussion.  We hadn't seen Caddice for months so it was super to be with her one more time.  So much for a slow day.

Sister Grover, Sister Miller and Caddice

This was our last discussion with these two wonderful sisters.

Sister Miller went home and Sister Grover was transferred to a different district.

Luba on the left and Lilia on the right

We ended our day with a YSA activity at the Institute room.  There were about 25 in attendance.  After a spiritual thought and a "get to know you" game, four young singles did an improvisation skit.  We don't know what was said but the young singles were laughing real hard. After refreshments, we showed them the YSA slide show of the past 17 months. Everyone seemed to enjoy seeing themselves on the screen. We were glad that Lilia showed up so we could say good bye to her. She is a non-member who we met in English group and who has kind of adopted us as her 'Mormon' grandparents. We love her a lot and pray that someday she will join the Church.

Recently returned missionary Katarina (lt)

with Denis and Irena.

They are enjoying the rice krispie treats 

and marshmallow brownies we made.

Such a wonderful group of young singles

After Saturday night's stake conference meeting, we went out to dinner with the Hays and Goodells.  We wanted to visit with the Hays one more time before we left as we won't see them again until they come home in February. We ate at a Mexican restaurant we had been to before and the food was as good as we had remembered it. The Goodells appreciated knowing where a good restaurant was located as they haven't found any they have enjoyed since they arrived a month ago.

Sunday morning, we attended another session of Stake Conference.  As we arrived we noticed a group of young girls smiling and waving at us. When we got closer to them we realized they were some of the girls who were at last Saturday's Evening in Excellence where we had spoken.  It was like we were their best friends. So sweet.

At conference Olya, a new convert from our ward, spoke.  She is 17 and has only been a member for about 8 months, but she spoke like a life long member. She has such a strong testimony, just like her father, Andrey.  We were very glad there was a stake conference just before we leave Moscow as we were able to see many of our former Pathway students which we would not ordinarily see because they live in other wards or branches.

Alona in yellow, Luba in red 

cutting yellow and red 

vegetables, respectively

That evening the YSA council came to our home for dinner and a planning meeting. We loved having them in our home one last time before we leave.  We served Hawaiian haystacks with each of them bringing one of the toppings to add to the rice and chicken and sauces we provided.  These young singles had never had such a dish and they loved it, many of them coming back for seconds. As they were eating, we heard the comment, 'We are in heaven.'  We said good bye to many of them but will see a couple of them again before we leave, so we delayed our goodbyes to them until later.

All of us together for the last time.

We will miss these very creative and responsible young singles.

This week, we continued experiencing many lasts....our last YSA activity, YSA council planning meeting, and our last stake conference in Moscow......and hopefully the last time the police will show up at our door.

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

We were out walking one afternoon and passed a cafe we had passed many times.  It is called Woody's cafe.  Until this day we had no idea it was named after Woody Woodpecker, but apparently there is some connection as we saw this Woody costume outside the restaurant.

Moscow is a city filled with churches.  There must be one every few blocks.  They are all Russian Orthodox churches and come in all sizes and colors.  We've seen red, blue, pink, green, and white ones....massive ones and very small ones. They all have the domed roofs and most have bells towers.

Just a few of the churches

we have seen

Under construction but still beautiful

Moscow also is a city filled with parks and every park has a statue and usually a fountain in it.  We have seen some exquisite ones as we have traveled the city. The people really appreciate having so many parks and they take advantage of them all year round.  It is the one thing they can do to get out of their little apartments and get some fresh air.

Pictures never do justice to the beauty we have seen in the many fountain and statures we have seen

  

AND THUS ENDS ANOTHER WEEK...

ONE WEEK CLOSER TO THE END OF A GLORIOUS EXPEREINCE