Sunday, June 06, 2016

  Well, I can’t find our camera and we had tons of pictures on it. We walked along the Volga yesterday and it just happened to be Volga Fest. There were lots of people, music and fun for kids. Hopefully I’ll locate it and send some pictures.

  This week has been a full one. We had transfers start on Monday. So we had tons of sisters and elders in and out of the office. The two new Elders and our senior couple got in Tuesday night. Orientation started on Wednesday. I have an orientation packet I have to put together for them.  After orientation on Wednesday the new Elders were paired with the AP’s and went out contacting. The next morning Elder Wilde was way excited. He and Elder Wardon meet a woman who invited them in to one of the Russian Orthodox churches. She spoke enough English that Elder Wilde could converse with her. Then they were able to place a Book of Mormon with a man who was very interested. He had a great first experience. Elder Wardon said he was really scared to do it but went ahead anyway. It was fun to see how excited he was.

  Tuesday night the Avrora branch was having a Borscht cook-off. Dad and I were invited but had decided not to go. On our way to our apartment we ran into President Blinkov. He invited us to go. He is the new branch President there. We decided we’d better go and we had a great time. Most of the Elders and some of the other’s dressed as ingredients that go into borscht. They sang a song as one by one the soup ingredients got into the pot. President Blinkov was a potato. I guess the person who was supposed to be sour cream didn’t show so they asked Dad to do it since he was wearing a white shirt. They put white dots on his cheeks and when it was his turn he really hammed it up and had the audience laughing.  I got some pictures but it’s in the camera I can’t find.

  There were 8 entries for the cook-off. Riesa, who cleans the mission office teamed up with me. I bought the ingredients and she made the Borscht. Two of our Elders, Anderson and Haroldson put together an entry also. Theirs is the only one I ate and it was really good. I also had some corn bread. Riesa and I came in 2^nd place. Dad tasted them all and some were cold and some were hot. He picked the one that won as his favorite.

  Thursday I went with the Sisters to visit Svetlana. She was amazing. The Sisters had gone with her to the doctor on Tuesday to help her. Then she called them on Thursday and told them that she woke up, after a full night’s sleep, feeling great. She’s been in pain for about 6 months. She said as she woke up she started praying, thanking God for Helping the doctors know how to make her better. She had a thing about prayer, never wanting to do it. Then when we were done with the lesson she offered to say the closing prayer. It was a wonderful prayer. She even thanked God for me being there.

After she was done I told her, “You aren’t an atheist anymore.”

 She was kind of taken aback and said, “Oh but I am.”

I said, “You are praying or communicating with God, you believe that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon through the help of God. You aren’t an atheist anymore.”

She wasn’t sure what to think about that.  Hopefully it will make her think. She gave us herbal tea and some cookies, crackers, dark chocolate and apples. The tea was chicory and was very bitter. I’m trying to be polite by drinking it. One of the sisters put some chocolate in hers to sweeten it, so I tried that in mine. It helped but still wasn’t great. I did manage to drink ½ of it.

  After meeting with Svetlana we went to Schwab’s for dinner with them and the Handcock’s. I made rolls and banana cake. We had spaghetti and salad. It was really good. The Handcock’s served a mission at the Kyiv Temple in Ukraine. They were telling us about some amazing experience that took place there.

  The Hancock’s said that they had a prompting to study the Russian language and had taken classes for about two years and can speak it very well.

We were told by President Schwab and Sister Zollinger the statics show that about only 6% of seniors who want to serve a mission are healthy enough to serve in Russia. Out of those 6% who receive a call to Russia 70 to 80% of them turn down the call. I just can’t imagine doing that when the call comes from God through the Apostles.

Dad asked President Schwab to give him a priesthood blessing and he did after dinner. It was an amazing blessing. I’ll let Dad tell you about it.

  Friday was District meeting and we met our new district leader, Elder Haroldson. He started the meeting by talking to us in an English accent. Dad thought I should show him mine but I declined.

  Saturday was a great day. We spent the morning cleaning and doing laundry. Then we got ready and headed out the door. We walked along the Volga River and it just happened to be Volga Fest. There were a lot of musical groups and tons of people walking around.

  We stopped part way and went to a restaurant to eat and no it wasn’t subway, burger king, KFC or McDonalds. We went to a Russian place. When we walked in they spoke to us and we told them we didn’t speak Russian. We were passed around to a few people and finally seated upstairs. The waiter handed up menus and immediately wanted to know what we wanted. We couldn’t tell him to give us a few minutes. Another gal came to help and said in English, Pig, cow, chicken? We both said pig. Then they were asking what else. I had given my phone with Google translate open to the waiter and he said something that translated to Caesar salad with Chicken. We gave him a thumbs up and said Dva which is two. So they brought out our salads and bread (no butter). It was really good. We figured that was it and we were getting a salad instead of pork. But after finishing our salad they brought in our pork dish. It was so good. It had a sauce on the side and some Cole slaw. I couldn’t finish it all because of the salad but really enjoyed what I had. KFC cost us about 600 rubles and this meal cost 2190 rubles which is about $33.

  Once we finished eating we continued on with our walk. The whole walk would probably take about an hour but we stopped along the way and also had lunch. We were gone over three hours. We were heading to the Rook. It is a monument that looks like a Viking ship. I looked on line and can’t find anything on its history. It is really cool looking and we took pictures, which is on my camera which I can’t find. We took a bus back and relaxed the rest of the evening. Well I did make rolls and chop carrots.

  Today was fast Sunday and I got to meet our new Elder in NovoK, Elder Lee. Elder Peterson got transferred to Saratov. I handed both Elders a small packet of cookies and Elder Wickman said to Elder Lee, “See I told you she would bring us something.” I guess after bringing them something for the past 6 weeks they know it’s coming.

  Fast and testimony meeting was great. Dad bore his testimony. He told the audience through an interpreter that he got a surprise at District Conference (like Stake conference) when they were sustaining the church leaders. They went through the mission presidency and they read his name in as the Mission Secretary. In his testimony he said that he was touched and that he would never had thought that he would be in Russia and have his name read in and have the people of Russia in that room raise their hands to sustain him.

  The three AP’s came to dinner, roast again. I asked Elder Porter what he wanted for dinner since he is leaving for home on Tuesday morning. He wanted the exact same menu as I made for them last time. They are so fun to have over for dinner.

Well, I love you all

Mom