Sunday, May 22, 2016

Dear Family,

  There are a few well fed Elders in our neighborhood. Elders Porter, Oldham, Anderson and Kendall came to dinner. Yes it was roast, potatoes, salad, corn, carrots and homemade rolls. Elder Anderson made us a pear cake for dessert and it was really good. It is so much fun having them all over. The Elders all remarked how good it was. Elder Anderson said it was the best meal he’d had in nine months (which is the length of his mission so far).

  Church was good. When we got there President Krievov asked Dad to give a talk along with Elder Peterson. I guess the speakers they had lined up didn’t show. Elder Peterson talked about Joy. Serving in the Church will bring us Joy. Dad talked about being obedient and he started with analogy of President Krievov’s little son walking unsteadily, and how Dad wanted to reach out and help him but he ended up doing okay on his own. He likened that to us and learning what our Heavenly Father wants us to do. He is there to help us when we need him to but will let us fall occasionally so we can learn and grow. He also related the story of President McKay’s horse named Dandy. That because he wasn’t obedient and didn’t stay in his own pasture he ended up eating some poisoned grain meant for rats and died. Anatolli spoke for the last few minutes about his experience in joining the church. How he was happy when he was coming a lot and then quit coming and lost some of the happiness he felt. But as he started back, going to church he could feel the difference in his life.

  Being asked to say the closing prayer in Relief Society was a little nerve wracking. I thought about what to say during the whole lesson. I prayed in Russian. After I was done I kind of shrugged my shoulders indicating that I wasn’t sure I got it all right but the sisters were all smiling and told me I did great. Larisa was there. She interprets for me on Relief Society. The lesson was on forgiveness. I expressed a point and Larisa translated it into Russian for me.

  Dad and I are gearing up to be brave next Saturday. It’s time for a little hair removal. We are going to go the place Dad had his first haircut. Using Google translate I’m going to write everything down that I want them to do and then hope for the best!! It is so far grown out of its style that I can’t do much with it anymore.

  Last Wednesday we visited Svetlana. The Sister Thomas (C Thomas), who is no longer in the area, who first found Svetlana was able to come with me and the other Sister Thomas (T Thomas). She is going home at the end of the month and was happy to see her again. Svetlana started calling her Sister Thompson instead of Thomas and the Sisters decided not to correct her. She had a pretty sweater and necklace on that the Sister’s commented on. Svetlana told them that she noticed that they wore ornaments so she wanted to also.

  The Sisters weren’t wearing tights and I was worried that the cats would use her legs as a scratching post again but they were both asleep, thank heaven. She is amazing. She read 2 Nephi chapter 30 and had lots of questions for the Sisters. Faith has been such a hard concept for her to grasp. I really love being with her and the time literally flies by.

 There are so many huge apartment buildings here. Most people don’t live in single homes but in high rise apartments. We are talking anywhere from 10 to 20 stories. The bottom floor of a lot of these places is usually some kind of business. The little market we go to is on the ground floor of a high-rise. Our apartment buildings ground floor houses a school for young kids. It’s an interesting way to do things.

  Next week is a district conference. I believe someone from the area presidency will be there to speak to us. There will be a bus picking up the members from NovoK to bring them to the Renaissance hotel, where we will be holding the conference. There is a meeting at 6:00 pm on Saturday and 1:00 pm on Sunday. It should be really good. It will be so great to be with more than just a handful of saints and also to be with all those missionaries. I was talking to a Sister Zollinger on the phone. She and her husband are coming up to teach about self-reliance. They are located in Siberia.

Me, “so how did you feel when you got your call?”

Sister Zollinger, “like I was being sent to outer darkness, never to be heard from again.”

 Sister’s Warnick and Thomas have moved up to my favorite missionary spot. When I saw them last they told me they couldn’t possible relate to me as a granddaughter to a grandmother because they think of me more as an aunt. I seem so young to them. This was even after I had them over for lunch so they couldn’t possibly be sucking up or anything, right? Elder Oldham moved to the bottom of the list.

Last Thursday Elder’s Oldham and Porter walked into the office and Elder Oldham said, “It smells like a gym in here.”  I guess they had been in the president’s office and were running the air conditioning.

I said, “You can turn on the air conditioning whenever you want, if I get cold I’ll put on a sweater.” Then he just grinned at me. On Friday I found some air-freshener and put it on his desk with a note saying:

If it smells like a gym where-ever you’re at you can use this!!

PS you can’t take it home it belongs to the office.

   

  Last Wednesday was Zone training. This training is run by our Zone leaders. Zone conference is run by our AP’s. President Schwab started us off by talking about turning our weaknesses into strengths.

Ether 12:27

27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

  Basically he said we need to go to the Lord and ask to be shown our weakness’s if we don’t already know them, or be shown the ones we don’t know. Then every morning and every night we need to pray for his help to overcome them and turn them into strength.

The Lord gives us weakness’s to make us humble and teachable. We can’t make it back to him unless we are humble. He wants us back so much that he is willing to give you weakness’s to overcome. If he gives you a weakness you will not, you cannot overcome it yourself.

We don’t know how long it will take to make the change from weakness to strength, it really depends on you. Steps we need to take:

1.       Pray to forgive us our weaknesses. 

       List them 

       Know you can’t change on your own.

2.       Ask your Father in Heaven for help in overcoming them.

The nearer a man gets to God the more aware of his weaknesses he is.

  The Zone leaders had the rest of the training. They set up with Dad and I, President Schwab and his daughter Jenni to help with some role play. I was a mother of three small rowdy children. I named them Dema, Sasha, and Larisa (those are the names of two kids and a woman in my branch). The Elders apologized to Dad before telling him what his assignment was, he was to be a semi grumpy old man who was hard of hearing. I’m not sure what the other two did. The idea is to give them practice in situations they will more than likely run into. I made a baby out of some towels and a rubber band. I included in my pictures the face I printed off for my baby. It definably surprised most of the missionaries, who came to my door. They all did really well. My feedback was that a few of them didn’t ask for my name and number even though they all made appointments to come back and talk to me.

Here is the face I used for my role play at Zone training.

  Well in the last few weeks the river has dropped about 6 or 7 feet. We have a sandy beach again. Saturday we went back to the mall we went to the previous week. We needed to find a roast for cook for the Elders. We used our Yandex taxi  app to order a Taxi. I said Dobra Utra to him which is Good Morning. Then he asked us a question in Russian and Dad told him we didn’t speak much Russian. He then proceeded to speak English to us. He was or is, (I’m not sure) a military lawyer. His foot was crushed a while ago so he is driving a taxi right now. I don’t know if it is forever or until his foot heals.  His name is Pavel  (he’s 30) and his wife’s is Maria, they have a 7 year old daughter. His wife works for the tourist industry. She is located near Freedom Statue we visited a while ago. She speaks very good English, as well as German and some Italian and Spanish.

  Dad and Pavel talked and talked like they were old friends. We found out that Pavel lived in our apartment complex, just down at the other end. We called to see if he wanted to take us to church today but he didn’t answer so we used to app to order one. He texted Dad back later that he was sorry but he’d been outside we called. He texted Dad a picture of a pot over an open fire.

Quoting from the text conversation:

Pavel,    Sorry, I outside of the city!

Dad        No problem. I hope you are having a great day. I will check with you next time we need a taxi.

Pavel     Ok! I’m a cooking PLOV, rice meat and carrot.

Dad        Looks delicious!

Pavel     So I invite U on next weekend! U accept?

Dad        We would love to have dinner with you. We have no way to get out of the city

Pavel     Why? I have a car, we have zaberem and go with us to the cottage. What r u think about it?

                Zaberem like take u!

                Consider it

Dad        Ok, I will check our schedule at our office tomorrow and get back to you.

Pavel     Ok, we will waiting for u

                So in Samara region have lot of beautiful places! Is Russian jeep! We go on region on it! (picture of white jeep)

Dad        Looks like fun.

Pavel     Mud is everywhere

  You can see by the conversation that these two really hit it off. We can’t really be gone the whole weekend because we need to be at church so I don’t know if it is possible to just go for the day. The Elders said if we get a chance to go we should go. I swear your Dad can talk to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

  Well, I’m sending you a picture of Elder Peterson holding a bouquet of Dandelions that the kids at our branch picked and gave to him. Elder Wickman has a sad face because none of the kids gave him any. 

  Here are some pictures we took after the Victory Day parade was over. We went outside and stood where we could see the road by our apartment, we were told that the trucks and stuff from the parade would come by. We didn’t see much of anything. 

Love you all!!

Mom