18th Floor Please!

Don't forget you can see a larger image of the pictures by clicking on them.
The Outside
The front Entrance of the Building
The Lobby
At the Door Off of the Elevator.
The Doors to the Living/Dining Area from the Entry
The Dining/Living Room from Living Area

Living Area from Dining
The Entry from the Living Dining Area
The Bedroom from the Entry
To the Kitchen from the Entry

The Kitchen
The Bathroom
Yes, we finally have an apartment. We have keys and will move in on Friday. We would have moved tomorrow, but we have a heavy schedule of meetings. So the Gibbons were kind enough to keep us for another day. It will be a long walk when it gets really cold, about a mile. But on the other days, we have a built in exercise program of 2 miles every day. Not your average missionary mileage, but don't forget we are seniors!!

We will be picked up by a driver on Friday and go directly to IKEA to pick up a light foam mattress cover that should soften the clean but firm mattress that will be ours for 17 months. We will then go to METRO to buy a microwave oven, toaster and crockpot as well as our groceries. We hope to order the internet tomorrow and a water delivery service (the big upside down jugs!). That should outfit us for the most part. We still need to get Chris a heavy coat and hat and we should be ready to take up residency.

One of the nice features of the house is the radiant heating in the floor. When we looked at the apartment the other night, we were asked to take our shoes off (a Russian habit that we are quite at home with). Then we stepped onto the granite/stone entry and felt an unexpected warming of our cold feet. We felt quite civilized at that point. Again, we will post pictures as soon as we get the internet. Here are the pictures:

We will go dark on Friday and hope to resurface sometime on the weekend or early the next week. So give us a little time before the next post.

Elder Bednar of the Council of the Twelve Apostles gets into Moscow on Friday. He will preside at the adult meeting on Saturday night and District Conference on Sunday. We will be to both of those meetings. We just have to determine how to use the Metro. Just another adventure.

Once we get into our own apartment, we can start exploring Moscow on the weekends. We are looking forward to that and meeting with the other senior missionaries for Family Home Evening. We have a pretty active group that likes to get out and about, so that should be fun. We can even have FHE in our apartment. We have three tables, 12 chairs and a piano!! Maybe we can start a branch!! That would save us a commute on Sunday.

Now that we have an address, they will be able to assign us to a branch. That should happen next week. So we will not be going to the International Branch anymore. Say goodbye to English and Zdrasvooche to Russian.

I should be able to make one more post tomorrow; the next one will be in technicolor!! When we cannot say!!