Friday, May 13, 2016

  Hey, I hope your weeks have all gone well. Mine has really flown by.  Last Sunday I had the 4 Elders over for dinner. I made an all American meal for them, Pot roast, baked potatoes, and homemade rolls, carrots in butter and brown sugar and salad. They brought cookies for dessert. I was hoping to make something else but this is what Elder Oldham wanted. 

  Victory Day was Monday. Dad and I wore our orange and black striped ribbons that Sergay gave us. I had more people talk to me because of that ribbon than all the rest of the time we’ve been in Russia. I guess there was a parade. For a few days before the parade their big tanks and other military stuff are sitting out on display. The Elders went there and took pictures. Next year we will be a bit more prepared and go up to the square and take pictures. There were lots of activities going on across the street on the strand by the Volga but we were counseled to stay in our apartments after 6:00pm.

  Well, I had the Sisters over for lunch today (Friday) and I made them some Beef Stroganoff, homemade rolls, salad and carrots. They had offered to make Muddy Buddies for the Elders for District Meeting so I told them they could do it at our apartment and invited them to lunch too. They said it was their first lunch appointment and the best food they’d had on their mission.

  It was our district meeting so I talked to our other set of Elders about coming to dinner. Earlier in the week they came in the office for something and then asked us, longingly, how the roast was. This was Elder Kendell and Elder Anderson (the one Dani knows). I told them I didn’t know if I’d get to metro before the end of the cycle. (that’s when transfers happen) So they could come to dinner soon and have a dinner made from hamburger or wait and see if I got a chance to go to the Metro store to buy another roast. Elder Kendell said, with a smile on his face, that he was a bit of a gambling man and since there was 3 weeks until the new cycle (you never know if you will be transferred) he would take his chances and hold out for Roast. For his sake, I hope I get out there to buy one.

  I went to visit Svetlana (86 years old) with the Sisters on Wednesday. I had the idea to bring her one of our hymn books in English. I suggested the sisters write their testimony in it. We brought it and sang her a song out of it. She seemed pleased. She is still very much in her head. She was showing us a book of famous paintings. There were some from the Sistine chapel. She was pointing out Isaiah, Jerimiah and a few prophets. These men are mentioned in the book of Mormon. She has so much to say but went off on a bit of a tangent today. The sisters tell me she does better, is more focused when I’m there. The Elders pointed out to them how much progress she’s made. When they met her about 6 months ago they found her sitting outside. That was a miracle in and of itself. She rarely goes out of her apartment and the one time she does she runs into the sisters. She told them she was an atheist and would always be an atheist. Now she professes to believe in God. She believes Joseph Smith translated the book of Mormon because there was no way an unlearned boy like him would be able to write that himself. Then she went off on a tangent but the Sisters eventually we got her focused again.

 

  Thursday was windy and rainy. The AP’s were looking for umbrellas and I offered them mine. I told them since I only lived 5 minutes away I’d share Elder Stewart’s with him. Dad and I were getting ready to leave when I decided to borrow a garbage bag to put over my head like a scarf. After leaving the building we turned a corner and the wind grabbed the garbage bag and twisted it around my head. My hands were full so I couldn’t untangle myself. I calmly asked your Dad to take the bag in my hand and we both started to laugh. As I unwrapped myself he was wishing he’d had his camera out.

    Dad arranged for us to have a taxi this morning to get to church and then we took the Marshrutka home. It was a good day. Anatolli was conducting today and he asked me to bear my testimony. I did it in Russian with only a little help from one of the Elders. I asked them later if I used the words properly and one said yes and the other just smiled at me and said good job. I may not have said it all right but they understood me.