Setting Records in Moscow

Apparently we are having a heat wave of historic proportions. Yesterday, we hit 48 degrees, the warmest day in Moscow for a December in history. I could not confirm this, but I suspect it was true. We have only had two light snows and they melted away immediately. We are praying ourselves to the warmest winter in history...you can pray with us, if you like!

Sometimes we take translations for granted. Often we just assume that they must be correct. Since we have been here, we have learned that many of the lyrics of our Russian hymns are completely different. One of the funniest stories about translations that we have heard came from Henry Kosak, our Church Education System Director. Henry is a native German, who speaks both Russian and English and maybe a few more languages. He said that when he was on a trip to Poland he heard the Polish saints singing Come, Come Ye Saints. This is probably the most famous Mormon hymn of all. One of the classic lines is, "all is well, all is well." In Polish, the translation came out, "Not so bad, not so bad!"

Today we went to the employee Christmas Devotional and lunch. It was fun seeing all of those that we don't see very often. The food was great and the talks uplifting.

Tomorrow, we have an Area Council meeting. Chris will go to Ismayla while I am in meetings.

On the economic front, the government reported that the U.S. economy lost over 500,000 jobs in November. This has only happened 4 times in our history. Despite these bleak numbers, the market is chugging along, up over 200 points. It is hard to figure. Oil is down to 41.5 a barrel. The rouble is now 28 to 1.

Until next time!