My How Time Flies

This has been a very productive week. With two of the Area Presidency out on mission tours, I was really able to catch up, after a long series of meetings and the long holiday season. I even discovered that I have a desk with a wooden desktop, once I worked through all the paper that was covering it.

I created a little spreadsheet to help me keep up with my own action items. I have about 17 items that I am working on currently, which I have taken as far as I can (each of these items require someone else to do something before I can complete the task). The spreadsheet is simply two columns with the action item in one column and a brief summary of the status of the item in the second column. I number each item and color the cell, if I have taken the item as far as I can, when the item is still in process. I take the color out of the cell, whenever I am able to work on the item. I was finding it difficult to remember where I was in the process (the next step). For example, I may have sent an email which requires someone in the field to respond, but 5 days later, I might not remember who I sent it to, or which mission the person is from. That part is getting a little easier, now that I know the missions and some of those who work in the office, but I still have a ways to go. It would be easy if you could just complete the task, but when you have to suspend items, waiting on input from others, it makes it a little more challenging to remember. What I would give for a good memory!! Once the item is complete, I remove it from my To Do list and paste it on my Completed Items list on another worksheet in the same file. This document remains open all day and is updated throughout the day.

Tuesday night was our FHE and all but two of the seniors couples went to the ballet. We at dinner at McDonalds. I had a Cheekyin Meefeet and a Shocolad Cocktail (a chocolate shake). We had a great time. What a beautiful theater. We had seats all over the first floor, but Chris and I got seats on the second row! I have never been that close for any event before!! We saw Cinderella and it was great fun. There were three acts and lots of little children staying out past their bedtimes. I wanted to just take pictures of all the little girls in their party dresses. They were all so cute and proper. I did happen to catch this one, without a flash (that's why it is a little fuzzy), with gold lame slippers.


The crystal lights above were stunning. The photos do no justice. Every color in the rainbow was being reflected. They were so shiny and rich looking. It made you feel as though you were in the Tzar's palace!!
As you watch this video clip of the theater, you will notice a bunch of shiny lights that are really too bright to video. These are all crystal lights.

After the ballet, we went out onto an island, where two large city streets converge in the theater district (Tverskaya) and took this picture under a statue of who knows who!!

On Thursday, a few of us gathered at the Ireland's to continue our Russian studies. We had the translator (Nastia), that the Ireland's use in their humanitarian efforts, to help us with our pronunciation. We need a lot of help.

On Friday night, the Prices joined us for a casserole, conversation and some games.

On Saturday, I worked most of today learning how to use a new software program that we are implementing in the Area to help us organize our meetings, minutes, and action items. The program is called Decisionpoint and was developed by the Church for the Office of the Presiding Bishopric. Apparently, in one year, the Presiding Bishopric takes over 20,000 actions!! Can you even imagine trying to organize records like that without the help of a good software program?

Mom baked cookies, made a stew and cut my hair. She can do it all. It has been snowing a lot here, so we never left the apartment. It is a winter wonderland outside and nice and warm, just above freezing.

Well, its about time to hit the sack, so I will say goodbye for now.

Just a Half a Day

Just a half day is what they used to say in Mexico. How long did you work? Just a half day: 7:00 in the morning to 7:00 in the evening! We started the day with a web training session that was conducted on my computer in the office, by the IT manager in SLC. Then we just ran from pillar to post until this evening, when I called it quits, having organized about a weeks worth of paper and completing an important email to the participants for our Februay Mission President's Seminar. It was the travel details for 48 people, coming from 12 different destinations, flights, hotels and shuttle service. Just thinking about gives me a headache. We finalize the details on Monday and finalize our purchases and bookings on Tuesday. Then we can actually get into the details of planning the Seminar!!

So this weekend will be a slow one. I still have to finish my talk for Sunday. I think Chris has already finished hers. We may have a couple (the Brown's) in tomorrow afternoon for dinner and games. We'll see. I am going to look for a movie now, to see if I can't catch some ZZZZs (inside family joke).

A New Look

I thought it was time to give the old blog a new look. I have been getting pretty tired of that little picture of Red Square, so it was time for a change. This was a picture taken while we were in the MTC. We had posted it earlier. We will continue to look for other photo opporunities.

Three in One

We just got back from FHE and we have the internet again, so hear is today's post plus the posts for the last two days. Very busy. I never get to the bottom of my in basket. We are in the middle of finalizing travel schedules for 50 people, coming from 14 missions and staff from Moscow to Sochi. Hopefully, by the end of next week I may have a chance to catch up. Mom got new water filters installed today and reclaimed our internet.

From Sunday

We had a very nice Sabbath Day. We got to sleep in a little later (our new meetings are from 1:00 to 4:00 pm). We had a great family presentation in our sacrament meeting, on being directed by the spirit. We had our first lesson from Teachings of the Presidents of the Church, Joseph Smith. We discussed the first vision. We had warm weather, just a little below freezing, for walking to and from the metro. We find that if we miss the bus, it takes about 25 or 30 minutes for the next one. Since it is only a 15 minute walk from the bus station to the metro, we often walk.

I am writing this post in Word, so that I can copy and paste it into the blog tomorrow, since we lost our internet connection today (who knows why!), but it was nice just to read and study. I just finished 2 Nephi. The last 7 chapters or so of 2 Nephi (which is what I was reading today), is one of the most complete discourses on pride, its consequences and how to overcome it. Isn’t it interesting that, today, we were asked to speak in sacrament next week and our subject is, “Overcoming Pride.” So, we have a pretty good basis for preparing our talks.

Mom has a driver tomorrow to take her to Oshans, one of the big grocery superstores. I was going to go with her, but I got a call tonight from the Area President, and it looks like our agenda for tomorrow is a bit more than I can manage by noon, so mom is trying to get another sister to go with her. It takes a half day to go grocery shopping, when travel time is considered.

By the time this gets posted, we will all know if the Cowboys are going to the Championship Game! I hope there is joy in Mudville tonight!! And Cody, I hope for your sake the Packers win their game! Wouldn’t it be something to see the two of them play each other again!

From Monday

We found out yesterday (Monday) that they cut off our internet for lack of payment!! The internet office is in the building right next to ours. Here is the real story. We started by paying 1350 rubles for the first three months. That was at the slow internet speed. The high speed which I got a month later is at 600 rubles a month. The installer said I could make up the difference (three hundred rubles) the next time I paid the bill. So much for what he knows! I still have 300 rubles worth of credit, but I guess if you don’t pay the bill in full, they just cut you off. No communication either by email or to our company representative who gave the company his cell phone number in case there were any concerns. The good news is the same guy who is going to change out our water filters tomorrow, will walk next door to try and straighten out the internet service. I would love to be there but this is my week of meetings, so I will just have to delegate it. It is nice to have that kind of support.

Tonight would be FHE but we have moved it to Tuesdays, so that two other couples can attend. So we probably would have watched a movie tonight, but I guess that will have to wait. So I think I will study my Russian!

P-Day

It is about 20 degress outside, and it snowed (just a dusting) over the past two days, and the 10 day outlook, for the most part, stays about 20 with some snow flurries and one day of freezing rain. It will be interesting to see how that goes. It's treacherous enough without freezing rain. But so far winter is setting up to be "mild" by Russian standards. Still, we are only into three weeks of winter, so we have 9 weeks left! Of course, by U.S. standards, we have about 20 weeks left!

Today is a day to catch up. I am going to venture out and see if I can find the local internet company, for bill paying purposes. It is supposed to be in one of the buildings close to our apartment. We'll see. It will also be a good day to study my Russian!

We had date night last night (dinner and a movie (both at home). The movie we watched on the internet. We discovered the motherload of free internet movies (http://www.watch-movies.net/movies/d.html) about a week ago and have seen some good ones. They are not always the very best quality, but they are great in Moscow. Here are a few I would recommend; The Debaters, with D. Washington, On Becoming Jane (bio on Jane Austen), August Rush, the story of a young, gifted musician, and No Reservations Needed, with Catherine Z. You have to watch them in sections, mostly, but sometimes you can watch the whole movie without interruption. The faster the internet, the better!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am studying Russian with the two other couples, the Yorgesens and the Irelands (I think the Prices will join our little group when they get back from their visa trip). The Shepards, Yorgesens, and the Ireland all studied with Jonathan Snow, my instructor. Jonathan, if you are listening,we have a what we think is a great idea for future students. Once they have learned the alphabet, have them practice reading and pronouncing the stops on the metro, on the green line and the red line (this is where we all spend most of our time). That would be a very practical and valuable skill set, for those coming to Moscow. Just a thought!

I found the internet company, but the business is closed on Saturday's. It was about 50 yards behind our building. I will check back next week.

Just had a visitor at the door. It was Galina, our next door neighbor (the one who teaches English and has translated for the church in the past). She has been out for almost two months, for the holidays and to help a sick family member. She came bearing gifts. She bought us a beautiful linen table cloth when she was in the Ukraine, a box of chocolates and a bottle of champagne! We were a little overwhelmed. Then she asked us for dinner. We said yes, we would be happy to. Then she asked us if we wanted to go on a River Cruise this summer to visit the "real Russia." She said she could arrange it for just the price of food (about $100). She said the cruise would take about 7 days!! We immediately went out to the florist across the street and bought some tulips to take when we go to dinner. This is the kind of impression the Russians make when you get to know the real people!! P.S. We had to tell her that we didn't drink and gave her back the champagne. Then she asked in disbelief, "Not at all?", to which we added no coffee or tea, so that we could get that settled early.

Now we are going to watch a movie, for the afternoon. It is called the Game Plan. Couldn't quite finish the movie, we are being called to dinner.

Dinner was great. We had leg of lamb and many other culinary delights. We met Galina's husband Sasha. Very nice guy. They have a very nice apartment, which they had remodeled a couple of years ago. We stayed until about 9:30, we had an interesting dinner conversation. They are very nice. They followed us home (our doors are about 12 inches apart!) to look at our apartment, then they left and we finished our movie. Typical Disney feel good movie. A pretty good day!

Davstree eche (see you later)

What a Cute Video

Today is Nick's 30th birthday!~ I (his Momma) am only 29 so I don't know HOW he got that old!!! We called to wish him Happy Birthday, and just caught him for a minute before he had to be in court...he attends a lot of bail hearings in his new job. He told us to check his blog, for a new video. What a treat to get to see Lore first thing Christmas morning, as she found her new trike and baby doll. She was so proud of herself for climbing on, and didn't seem to care that she had knocked her doll off the seat to the floor! First things first! My how she is growing up; almost two, come mid-February, and what a cutie-pie!

I met tonight in our apartment with one other couple and Elder Yorgeson (his wife was sick) to study Russian! (Mom made dessert!) It was the first time, in some time, that I had cracked the books and I was amazed at how much I had forgotten, but at the same time, I was much more comfortable with reading and pronounication than I remember. Of course, we didn't have any natives with us to really measure my progress. But I do think trying to read all of those advertisements on the metro is paying off. Now I will have to follow that up with some independent study and let's see where that takes me! I will be a long road, regardless!!

Back to Work

All of Russia went back to work yesterday, after the New Year's shutdown. The country virtually shuts down for about 10 days. Tuesday was their Christmas. On the internet, I saw that one news source says the Russians spend about 25 billion dollars on celebrating New Year's. That sounds like a bit of a stretch to me, but if it is true, about half of that amount is spent of fireworks. We still hear them, from time to time!

Yesterday, was our first real day back to work, though I went in on two occasions and worked about a half day each. Lots to do getting ready for the Mission Presidents seminar in Sochi, just a month away now.

It is still cold, but we expect snow to return tomorrow and that should warm things up a bit.

Happy New Year to all. Happy Birthday Nick! We will stay in touch!

A Room with a View

We took a little hike today to what is commonly referred to as Sparrow Hill, at least by the senior missionaries! Walking through a grove of birch trees we came to a vista that gave a rather nice view of Moscow below. There are not a lot of vistas of Moscow. Unfortunately, even as clear as the skies were, there was still enough moisture in the air to keep one from seeing "forever."

Along the way we stopped off at the first and largest McDonalds in Moscow. It is located just off Tverskaya, which is just kitty corner to the deli, shown in the last post. This is a very touristy area, with lots of things to do and only a short distance from Red Square.

I talked with one of the vendors at the top of the hill. He was selling bronze busts of famous Russians, like Lenin, Stalin, Pushkin, etc. He started to tell me a little bit about the history of Russia. I asked him who his hero was and he said Stalin! I told him he was not my favorite and began talking about the valiant stand the Russians made against the Germans in WWII. He agreed with me that winter was a special season, since it delivered Russia out to the hands of two great dictators, Hitler and Napoleon. He told me about a gathering in 2005, when Russia celebrated the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. He told me about a veteren with medals draped on both sides of his uniform and how he gave up his seat to him on the metro. He said that when he contemplated what this man had been through, that a tear rolled down his cheek. The Russians have a lot of sentiment for their WWII heroes. At McDonalds
At the Metro near Sparrow Hill
Looking over the Moscow River
The University of Moscow, across the street from vista point!!

Gastronome No. 1

This is the famous delicatessen we have spoken to many of you about. It was the ballroom of an ex-tzar. It is quite the place to buy your groceries. Of course, you don't buy too many, because with each purchase you pay for a little bit of the posh surroundings. We did find SF style italian style salami. It was about 15 bucks for one pound. You would get a whole stick for that price in the City!

Also picture below is what the Russians call Catherine the Great's Palace. They say that, but everything in the palace is brand new (finished, for the most part, in the last couple of years but they are still working on it). It is quite the building and the grounds will be quite lovely in the spring. The big dome is actually a fountain, a la the Belaggio Hotel in Las Vegas, with music and programming. Apparently, some small part of this palace was actually built for her, but she wouldn't live it because Masons worked on it and she thought they may have put a spell on it. Mostly, it is a museum, which is interesting, but probably not quite as interesting as the story they are promoting!!

Some kind of Delicatessen!
Catherine the Great's Palace from a distance
Catherine the Great's Palace
Catherine the Great's Palace
Catherine the Great's Palace (inside ballroom)

Happy New Year

On New Year's Eve, a few of the senior missionaries took off on a walking tour of downtown Moscow, with the intention of eating at a famous deli. Well, we never found the deli, thanks to my misinterpretation of a map, so we will save that for another day. But we did have a nice lunch (I had babyback ribs, Russian Style and they were great). The cost of the ribs was between 6 and 7 dollars! Every once in a while you can find a deal!

The following are pictures we took as we walked through the city. I tried to give you some idea of the preparations for Moscow's New Year's celebration, a Moscovite's biggest celebration of the year. The last one in this series is a video of fireworks outside our window. Imagine fireworks like this by the thousands going off all over Moscow (all night long!). That's New Year's in Moscow! This video was taken at approximately 2:00 a.m. Chris and I were awakened in the morning at about 7:30 a.m. with other local bombs blasting!!
Coming Out of the Underground Cross Walk and Entering the Red Square Area.
Our Group
The Metropol Hotel (One of the Oldest and Grandest Hotels in Moscow
Inside the Metorpol
An Interesting Building
Mom Inside the Ritz Carlton Hotel
Happy New Year in a Big Way
Snowman with Coins (People lick coins and put them on the ice scupture. There were about 10 of these!)
Statue of Moscow Founder (850 years ago), but still in the spirit!!
Happy New Year in a Small Way!

Later that afternoon, we all went home to the Price's and ate all of their chicken soup! What a great improvised dinner! We were going to play games but settled on conversation instead! After dinner, we then went to the Ireland's to watch the fireworks. They have a great view of the city. We left there just before 10:00 p.m. and got home at just past 11:00. We actually could see more from our apartment, because we are further north, but we just see some things smaller, unless, of course, the fireworks happen to be in your backyard!

At just a little past midnight, I found a streaming video channel from CNN on the computer showing the Moscow New Year's celbration at Red Square. It was great seeing the performers on the stage that we had seen earlier in the day. And it was a lot more fun seeing it on the computer, in the warmth of our cozy apartment.

On New Year's day, Chris cut my hair with the new trimmers we bought in Tallinn. She did a great job! Then, she frosted her hair, while I put our receipts together for the last 10 days. Later, we invited the Price's for dinner and played Pedro (well there was no football)!!! They caught on pretty fast. We had stuffed celery with cream cheese and olives, salami and cheese, brownies and ice cream, M@Ms, and more chicken soup, that we had made the day before! Since no two chicken soups are the same, we didn't mind having it two days in a row.

Today we are going to see Catherine the Great's Palace in Moscow. While she never visited there, it was still built for her!! Talk about extravagance!

A Charming Town

There is a big difference between Moscow and Western Europe. We could feel it as soon as we left the airport. The cab driver was lively. It was still overcast and cool, but not cold. There was no snow on the ground. There were no throngs. Hardly any cars. Only 600,000 people in the whole country!! When you stepped onto a crosswalk, every car stopped. Pedestrians were no longer targets. They actually had the right of way.

Every street in the old town is pristine. They obviously have a lot of pride in their heritage. Be sure to click on the pictures to appreciate the detail. From this first pic you can see the ocean and the cruise ships that frequent their harbor!
Old Town from above the city wall!

Russian Orthodox Church

Dadd standing in one of the many interesting little alleys that provide shortcuts from one street to another.

After about 4 hours on our feet the first day, we checked out a movie: National Treasure 2, or whatever the name was! Don't faint, but your father paid $12 dollars apiece for tickets!! I'm not sure I have still recovered from that experience.

Over the next couple of days we checked out the Maritme Museum and the Occupational Museum. The Occupational Museum was my favorite and tells the story of occupation by, first, Russia, then Hitler, then Russia again, until 1991 (They actually raised their flag in 1989, but it took a couple of more years for the communists to acknowledge their independence.

The last night we ate at a nice little Italian restaurant and strolled through the city at night. Here is a picture that shows the city square at night. The square was set up like a little village, with portable, but quaint little buildings or merchants to sell their wares, and a stage for local talent to entertain us. I will post some video a little later.


The next day we spent some more time in Old Town, after we got our new visas and our passports back from our travel agent. We must have spent a couple of hours just in the book store. Earlier that morning we bought some food for dinner and breakfast for the long (16 hour) train trip back to Moscow. Here is a picture of our deluxe accomodations.


I will tell you more about the adventure on the train later, but I am out of time now. Happy New Years, if I can't get back to this later today!! We are on our way to the Truman Madsen Fireside tonight.

Better than Presents

We woke up this morning and opened our cards from our family and what a joy! We read and cried. What special children and family we have. To actually have kisses sent to us by mail! Wow! Such sweet words and beautiful pictures. And Ashley, you looked like a rock star in your Halloween picture!! I guess that's OK once a year. We enjoyed the precious notes in our grandchildren's own handwriting. And Cameron, we haven't forgotten you are working toward becoming a member of Grandpa's 10,000 page Reading Club! You will be number 4! What a legacy you young readers are going to leave for your children someday.

We missed Zack and Daniel yesterday, because they were both working when we called. But Zack, your present was the best we received, a little bit like deja vu when Nick stuffed his missionary papers in your mother's stocking! I am sure we will all be blessed just the same. PS: Don't forget the RV!!!!

We enjoyed seeing all of you yesterday. What a marvel technology is, even with a little feedback on the microphone. But when we finally realized that we could call on vonage while watching the video, everything was perfect.

We had a great time with all of the missionaries and the senior couples yesterday. We were planning on going to the mission conference for a little while and then going out to dinner as a group, but after talking to our mission president, he seemed a little disappointed but supported our decision nonetheless. So we reconsidered our plans and stayed through the whole program, and we were so glad we did. Who wouldn't trade a steak dinner for the spirit of Christ? We watched "It's a Wonderful Life." We played games, sang songs, listened to poetry and sweet testimonies. Sister Cranney, the mission mom, had spent weeks preparing handmade meatballs and chicken nuggets. The senior sister missionaries, helped by making up four big sheets of seven layer (walking taco) dip. There was plenty of fruit and a wonderful fruit dip. Lots of other stuff and some great desserts. A few missionaries playing UNO with Elder Monson looking on.
Mom with Mary Monson
Sister Cranney

Today, we are headed for Rosinka for our day with the Gibbons and the Madsens. Mom is baking brownies with a recipe she got off the internet. She is missing vanilla, but will throw in a Snicker's bar to compensate!

We didn't get any of our packages, but not to worry, nothing could have been better than the cards and your sweet expressions. We will probably get the packages when we get back from Tallinn.

We didn't get much of a white christmas. It sleeted on us a little as we made our way home last night, but it looks more frosty outside than snowy. Again, it doesn't matter, because we have been enjoying the snow, most of the time, ever since we got here.

Mom bought me a pair of slippers and I am going to give her some money to shop in Tallinn.

We have had a wonderful Christmas season. Talking to all of you was like having a great feast set before you and getting to take only a few bites. It is so good that all you do is talk about how much you would have liked to have had more!!

On a sadder note, I talked with my friend Bob, in California and he has been diagnosed with colon cancer. He has already had his surgery and seems to be doing fine. The doctors are very optimistic that they discovered his cancer in time. He had 17 lymph nodes taken out, only one had any trace of malignancy. He is and will continue to undergo chemotherapy for the next four months. Remember him in your prayers. Bob and I have been best friends since we were freshman in high school, two skinny little kids running cross country. He is a wonderful person and a great friend.

Our good friends the Monson's were back from Nizhney, for the conference. They were our next door neighbors. Unfortunately, on their way to the conference, while on the metro, he had his wallet stolen. Interesting that I just mentioned this possibility a post or two ago. He was able to cancel his cards, but lost about 5,000 rubles or $200 in cash. It didn't kill his indomitable spirit though, he was our Father Frost.

Mom thought he would do for a picture with Santa!

It's a Glorious Day in the Neighborhood

The sun is shining. No clouds, but 10 degrees colder. Just enough frost on the ground to make it interesting. We have been to church and are home in our WARM little apartment. We are having a variation of "slop" for dinner! We are going to watch Miracle on 34th Street this afternoon, read, look for emails from our family and friends, etc. Hope you are all well.

A Busy Day!

Yesterday, was a big day with our hospital visit (all elderly women) and the Moscow Choir concert. Our hospital visit was very nice. Music, gifts and tears. One resident made a vigorous sign of the cross (several times) when she discovered our purpose. They thanked us individually for coming all the way from the United States for this special occasion and one asked when we would come back. We sang serveral Christmas carols and even managed to sing one song in Russian!

It was very special to tenderly take each of them by their hands, look them in the eyes, and wish them a happy new year (snowbim godom in Russian). Some of them, who were not entirely grasping what was going on, were still very polite and always said Spaceeba (thank you) each time they were offered a gift (We had two packages for each, chocolates and personal items), but there were several others whose eyes were just sparkling; their countenances were enough of a "thank you." It breaks your heart to realize that these are Heavenly Father's children too. He loves them just as much as he loves us, and mourns for them more. Sad isn't it, that with all we have, we can sometimes only find an hour to give, once a year.

Coming on the metro (18 stops), we arrive at 3:59 in foyer, with four youth from the international branch. We were supposed to be there at 4:00! We were finished by 4:45 and were off to the choir.

Elder Price hamming it up with Acia our new secretary
Our group with bags in hand on our way to the rest home; one other senior couple met us there (The Abrams)
The next few pics are of the group on the metro and in the metro station; these pictures in the metro station are very unusual in that only our group was in the metro at the time we took these pics; seconds earlier or later it would have been filled with traffic.


Here are few more pics. The first is of our group again as we were leaving the rest home, with the four youth who joined us. On the front row left is Elena Nechiporova, our Public Affairs Director and to right, is the Relief Society President from one of the branches. The other two pictures are of the inside the hall where the choir concert was held.



The choir was a lot of fun. Two from our office staff sang in choir. To really appreciate this choir, you must understand the time and distance that must be overcome, just to have practice. These pioneer saints are Moscow's future. Here is a video clip:


Then it was off to MacDonalds for dinner and we finally arrived home at about 10:30 p.m.

We were going to try to get out today, but I think we will probably just stay in, since Monday and Tuesday are completely filled up with activity, with Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Then we are off to Tallinn. We ended up with an extra day in Tallinn, because our visa date was put off a couple of days and we couldn't change our flight out, but we did manage to change our train coming back. There is not a lot of flexibility with dates around the New Year as you get to the last week of the year. We will be back in time for New Years in Moscow. This past week we have already seen many fireworks from our 18th floor vantage. It sounds like machine gun fire. Sometimes you can't see the rockets but you can see their reflections on the buildings nearby.

Christmas Eve is a fun and games day with the Moscow Mission. The we will meet up with the seniors for dinner, probably TGI Fridays. Christmas day we are going to the Gibbons for dinner. There other guests are Truman Madsen and his wife Ann. They are visiting with Larry and LaDawn until New Years.

We will try to call home on Christmas eve at 2:00 a.m. our time, about 5:00 p.m., Dallas time. We will try to call each family on Christmas Day after we get back from the Gibbons, which will be your early afternoon. If you're at the movies have a good time, but we may miss you.

We fly to Tallinn about 10:00 a.m. on the 26th. You probably won't hear from us until the New Years eve. We won't be hauling the computer with us. But we will take a lot of pictures while we are there, so stay tuned.

A Busy Week

Monday, we had family home evening with the Gibbons, Simon (he in charge of buildings) and the Pages (he is our OGC). We had pizza and played games. We had some adventure getting out there. President Gibbons picked us up at a metro station sort of near his house, but not until we had already gone to the wrong metro stop. The name of the station is Tushinskaya, the stop before is schuskinskaya. Both are spelled exactly the same except that one starts with a T in the russian version and the other does not. We didn't think we heard the T sound, but thought we just missed it with all of the noise of the metro, so off we went looking for a McDonalds and a flower shop. We found these two landmarks not particularly helpful, since there is a McDonalds at nearly every metro and flower shops galore!! We will be more careful next time. The good news is that we were about 30 minutes early to begin with and ended up being just in time!!

On Wednesday, we went to the symphony. I can't tell you what we heard or who conducted it, but it was lots of fun. The music had a lot of energy and the conductor was quite a personality. The Gibbons came to our house for dinner before the theater. It was there first time to see our apartment.

Today, we made final preparations for Christmas gifts to all of the emplyoyees in our office (9) and our three drivers. We made up cards and bought chocolates for each. The AP will give them out tomorrow.

Tomorrow (Friday) we will lug about 30 pounds of candy and about 60 pounds of personal items to the hospital for our visit with the elderly. We will be met by some of the youth from the Moscow Mission, visit for about an hour, pass out our presents, sings some carols and then head to the Moscow Choir (made up of church members) for a concert which begins at 6:30 p.m. Then, I think the seniors will head out for a late dinner.

We have no plans for Saturday at this point. It might be nice just to sleep in!! Monday is our last day in the office and then we are off for Tallinn to renew our visas. Our visas won't be ready until Saturday now (we were supposed to get them on Thursday), and we are struggling to put our travel together to get home. Hopefully, by tomorrow we will know for sure. We would like to be back in Moscow for the New Year celebration.

A Day at the Pushkin Fine Art Museum

Today we went to the Pushkin Fine Art Museum. It was a beautiful day with full sun!! Still cold, but the sun was great. It is quite a museum. Many of the masters, including Rembrandt, Matisse, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Manet, Monet, (a whole building dedicated to French Impressionist paintings). Another few floors were filled by an artist you may not know...Plastorini Castore...or so says Elder Price. These floors are full of life size plaster casts of a number of the great works, such as Winged Victory, and Discus Thrower. I guess for so many years people in Russia couldn't travel outside the country, so they decided to create facimiles for all to enjoy. I guess that's not really so different from going to Las Vegas to see the Eiffel Tower. Despite, the fact that they were not the real thing, we enjoyed it nonetheless.

Here are a few of our favorites that require no explanation:






After 7 years of working in employment it is still in my veins. I found the image to be quite poignant. It is called, Unemployed.

I Can Smell Popcorn!!

We worked a half-day today and then went to the Area Presidency's Devotional. We caught a hamburger with our friends, the Prices, then snacked at little at the devotional and headed home by about 5:00 p.m. Your mother just indicated that she is not having good luck with the popcorn, so I had better check it out. We thought popcorn and movie tonight, but it may just be a movie!!

37th Year Anniversary

Today, marks 37 years of marriage. Hard to believe that two kids just barely in their twenties, could have traveled so far (literally!) in what seems, like your mother told me today, like a blink of an eye! Six children, almost 12 grandchildren and we have traveled about as far as one can get from our hometowns (13 time zones). Life has been very good to us. We have enjoyed so many blessings, my favorite being my little babuska. This should serve as an early reminder to all of her kiddos, to send an email to her today. Hard to believe...37 years!

Today it is snowing and about 10 below freezing...so were back to normal after our heatwave!!

A Profitable FHE

Yesterday, we went home with the Prices for dinner and then they hosted FHE. We discussed an idea that we had, to do a service project for about 60 elderly babuskas in a state run rest home. I came home with about $400 dollars in contributions from the Seniors, to buy some personal items and chocolates. Our PA Director made up a very nice gift set of personal items and chocolates for about 150 rubles, about $7. She did a great job. I will take a picture in couple of days to show you what she came up with. We are going to visit them in one week from this coming Friday, with some youth from the Moscow and Moscow West Mission. We will do this in the afternoon and then we will take off to a choir concert being given by the Moscow Choir, a choral group made up of church members. I think they would like to become the Moscow Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

I am still trying to catch up from last week. By tomorrow, I should be caught up. We did get some reservations for Tallinn. The airlines fly there only on Mondays and Wednesdays. So we will fly out on a Wednesday and take the overnight train back to Moscow on Saturday. More later.

The End to a Big Week

You may have noticed I did not make a lot of postings this week. That's because we have really been putting in a lot time getting ready for a Russian Mission (8 missions) Coordinating Council that was held in Moscow yesterday. It was conducted by video conference from two locations, Novosibirsk and Moscow. Six mission presidents and 13 District Presidents were in Moscow and two mission presidents and their distric presidents were in Novosibirsk. There were three Seventies (the Area Presidency) and two Area Seventies in Moscow and one seventy (Elder Neuenschwander) in Novosibirsk. With a number of staff members from Moscow, DTA, General Counsel, Public Affairs, CES, Welfare/Humanitarian, translators, technical support personnel, office secretary, and others, we had about 45 people who participated in total. We managed to get hotel reservations for those in need and drivers for all of the out-of-town guests who were arriving at any one of three airports and other trains stations and got them back as well. We had headsets for each person and arranged for two translators, both for English and Russian. We fed them and prepared a number of handouts that were in both English and Russian. We also arranged the music, which included a portable keyboard and a pc with speakers and a DVD for our prelude music.

We had some anxious moments, but in the end, everything came off on time and worked perfectly. You never know with technology, but it was a blessing when we saw there smiling faces from Novosibirsk on the two monitors we had set up.

By the time I got back, I changed my clothes and headed back in the same general direction with the Monsons, to attend our branch Christmas celebration. There were about 12 types of soups or chili beans, great bread and about 20 types of desserts. We had a good time. It was a special moment to see the three wisemen bow to the boy holding the star, instead of Mary and Jesus!! You could not have scripted it better.

I am getting ready this morning for an Area Coordinating Council which will be held in downtown Moscow, which will be attend by the Area Presidency and the two Area Seventies. Next week should be a breeze!!

That's all the time I have for now. Talk to you soon!

The Area Council was great. We spent about an hour of our meeting just studying the scriptures together. You would be amazed, but not surprised at the command these brethren have with the scriptures. I was trying to act like a sponge, but I was at full capacity in just the opening moments. I took lots of notes though to study later.

We paid our rent today. It's a curious process. The landlord comes to your apartment to collect the cash then goes out in the hall to read the electric meter. There are two readings, one for the day and one for the night. Then, they multiply the killowats used by a factor to come up with your payment. Next, they fill out a form to submit with the payment. Our day payment was 602r and our night usage was 30r for a total of 640r or about $26.00 for the month. That beats $500 or $600 in Dallas!! Or does tell you a little more about the size of your apartment!!

Family Home Evening

We had a very nice FHE last night at the Monson's (just about a 100 yards away).It was probably their last one with this group, as they are going out to the hinterlands, where they will be the only senior couple for hundreds of miles. It will be very different out there. Quite remote to say the least.

We sang Christmas carols and shared family Christmas traditions. We talked about having Santa come and reading the Other Wise Man. Sister Price told about a special Christmas that she and her husband had one Christmas when he was serving as the first Mission President in Vladivostok (near the Pacific Ocean on the far east side of Russia). She and her husband spent the day traveling with a group of members to a hospital for the mentally ill and an orphanage. Elder Price knows how to blow up balloons and tie them into hats, dogs and such, so that was his contribution. She told about how they gave away brand new sweaters to all of the children. Then she described their reaction to receiving, for most of them, their very first new sweater. There was not a dry eye in the house. So today, I floated the idea with a few people, and if we get lucky, we may try to provide a similar service on this year's Christmas Day. We will keep you up dated on our progress.

If you are looking for the map from the previous blog, I had to take it down, because it was messing up the rest of the blog. I guess it was a little too much for the blog. It wouldn't show any of the pictures I had posted previously. When I took it off, everything began to work as it did before the post. Oh, well.

Map of the Neighborhood

Here goes nothing. Below you will see a map of our neighborhood, from Google Maps. I am going to try to give you directions from our apartment to the office, so that you can get some idea of our commute, or if you want to be our first drop-in company! First, close the ballon that is covering the map. Now, start where the green arrow is. The green arrow marks the street that apartment building is on, but not our apartment. Viewing the map in the "map" view, pretend like you are drawing a line parallel to the bottom of the map at the green arrow about an inch or more in length (go to the East). You should run into a building that looks like an E. Above that building you will see our apartment, it looks like an L. (If you click on see larger map view, below the map, you will be taken to Google Maps. If you go to "sat" view, and zoom in you will see the apartment numbers, ours is 10K3). So, we walk between apartments to get to just above the green arrow and cross the street. Directly across the street and north just a little you will see a building complex with three towers (look for the three little towers with shadows, in "sat" view. We stay north of those buildings and cut through and behind the store which is on the corner (if you go directly north on our street until you get to the next first intersection). That's where the store is, but we go behind the store, through part of the parking lot and go West through the trees (the green area on the map) until you get to the next street. We jaywalk directly across the street at that time and stay at the same angle until work our way up to the main street which is called festivalnaya. We proceed West on this main street until we get to the first street that comes from the north at a 90 degree angle. Then, we proceed north on that street and walk completely around two towers that are running parallel to the street to this street. It looks more like an H in the "map" view. It is three buildings north (more or less)from Festivalnaya. Our tower is the East Tower. We could cut off a 1/4 mile if we could just walk straight to our building, but the gate is locked in the morning. But we do save that distance when we go home at night. Good Luck. I hope you don't get lost! Because it is really cold out there! Mom wants to know who really cares? She says my own mother won't care, but I have faith in you mom!!

Hamming and Camming

Dadd haming it up on an old ship docked in the middle of Ismaloftsky (the market).
This is how the video conference looks from Moscow

The temperature dropped quite a bit overnight. It got up to about 15 degrees today. You can feel the cold settling into your body. It just penetrates. Our real test is still 4 to 6 weeks away, when it gets to 20 or 30 degrees below zero!! I think about 15 or 20 minutes is about all we could take. However, it already feels quite balmy when the temperature reaches freezing. Maybe it will feel the same when it goes from -30 to -20!!

We went to church today with the Irelands. They have been here two weeks now. They are from South Dakota, on the 13,000 acre farm!! We walked from the Metro Station to church so that they could get a feel for the neighborhood. After church two members offered to drive us back to the metro, only three stops away from our home stop. That was wonderful (that saves one transfer). When we got there, Sister Ireland and Sister Shepard did some window shopping in a mall, while Elders Ireland and Shepard made their way to the church's Service Center building. The Service Center is where all of the church employees work that do not work directly for the Area Presidency. I have a meeting there on Monday and did not know how to get there. We traveled the circuit (up and back) in about 35 minutes. Then the Ireland's walked back to their apartment and we continued on the metro to the end of the line.

Mom made spaghetti and a tossed green salad and garlic bread. It tasted like home!! Then we ate some fudge (more like carmel chews with chocolate). We had some sweet and condensed milk we had to use up, so Chris whipped up this little concotion with a chocolate candy bar we had. It was sticky, but very tasty!!

This next week is going to be very busy. Three straight days of meetings, one right after the other. And this week I am in charge of setting up two video conferences, which I have never done. That is the purpose of my meeting on Monday. I also have a new secretary to orient and train. Talk about the blind leading the blind!

Hope you are doing well. Drop us a line, when you get a chance.

We'll Celebrate the New Year in Tallinn or St. Petersburg!

Oleviste Church (Tallinn) the tallest building in the world...in the 16th century!
We found out that we have to go out of the country at the end of December to get our visas renewed. We will be going to Tallinn, in Estonia. From what I have heard, it is a charming little town. Since we will be going in the last week of December, we should be able to back it up to our New Year's holiday and maybe take off from there to St. Petersburg for the weekend. Already, all the trains are booked to St. Petersburg, for New Years, but since we could actually travel on New Year's eve, when everyone else is already there, we have been told that the train tickets are discounted by 75 percent, because they are virtually empty. We'll see!

Friday evening we entertained the Browns, Irelands, and Prices at our apartment. Sister price made up a Russian salad that consists of tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, onions and a special cheese (a little like rocotta) and I made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches on fresh baked bread and mom made brownies. We just ate and talked. We had games, but mostly people talked about their families (we are still getting to know each other). We found out, that serveral years ago, the Irelands and the Prices went to the Holy Lands on the same trip with a BYU excursion, but didn't know it until last night. We discovered that the Brown's son served his mission in Padova, Italy at the same time as Nick. It's a small world in the church! The Irelands also own a little farm in South Dakota...13,000 acres!!

President Gibbons shared a joke with me that is going around in Dallas, that seems appropriate to share, given the Cowboy's drubbing of the Packers on Thursday night. Brett Farve, it seems, was in Heaven being taken to his very nice but humble abode. It had a small flag in the front yard with a Green Bay Packers flag. He thought it was a nice touch. But to his chagrin, he noticed a 3-story mansion just down the street with a silver and blue driveway, silver stars in every window and huge flagpole with a Dallas Cowboys flag. God noticed that Brett seemed to be troubled, and ask Brett if he was OK. He said he was a little disappointed when he saw the huge house that had been built for Tony Romo. Then he indicated that he was, after all, the National League's number one rated quarterback, hall of famer and had won the world championship, none of which had been accomplished by Tony. Then God smiled and said, Brett, that's not Tony's house, that's Mine!! [Sorry Cody. I know how much you like Brett and so do I, but when it comes down to the Cowboys or the Packers, I have to go with the Cowboys!!) By the way, did you get to go to the game?

Today, we are headed out to Ismyloftski, the renock (market) that we went to a couple of weeks ago when your mom got her hat. We are going with the Gibbons this time. They will be by at 9:30 a.m. with a driver to pick us up. I'm not sure what else we might do, but since we have a driver, maybe we will explore a few other places as well.

Elections in Russia tomorrow. This is their parliamentary election. The Presidential election is sometime in March, I think.

It's been snowing nearly every day. The temperature has been hovering around freezing most of the time, but it has not really been too cold or windy, so the 'commute' has actually been quite pleasant. We enjoy our walks through the woods and snow. However, the other other day, I was standing to close to the curb and I am sure the driver had more than a little fun when he splashed me when his car sped through a puddle. I did see it coming and moved back, but he still got me, though just a few drops.