Back from St. Petersburg!

It's a quiet Saturday morning. Chris is still in bed. Just got off with the phone with Sam and we discussed getting together sometime later in the day.

We got back from St. Petersburg just before 9:00 p.m. It was beautiful in Moscow. They had had some rain earlier, but it was all blue skies for our ride from the airport. The seminar came off as planned. It was a pleasure to be in the company of Elder Rasband and Elder Perry. Elder Perry is now 86 years old, but he is a vibrant, enthusiastic, witness of Jesus Christ. He needs no microphone when he speaks!

We got in on Monday morning with no delay and our drivers were there to take us to the hotel. We met with Lilia, our event coordinator and after some arm twisting got her to let us get into the confernce room after dinner, instead of setting up the next morning before the conference started. That was important from my perspective, since I was to be the scribe for an Area Presidency meeting with Elders Rasband and Perry from 10:00 till noon; I wanted to get as much accomplished as possible the night before.

We actually had about a one hour window to take a little tour before dinner, so we called President and Sister Harrison (of the Russia Rostov Mission) to see if they wanted to go to St. Isaac's Cathedral, a 100 yard walk from the hotel. They were in the lobby in seconds flat. We also called President and Sister Bennett (of the Russia Samara Mission) to join us, but they were already on the streets and were lost, so there was no way they could get back to join us.

This cathedral looks more like a government building from the outside because of the massive display of columns. These are huge marble columns. We saw one that had quite a scar on it, and with further inspection, we could not find any seams in the marble and could only conclude that they were one piece and solid to the core!!

Outside of St. Isaac's.
Close up of columns.
Looking out from on top of the cathedral, from the base of the dome. To the left was the Fusion restaurant and to the right was our hotel.
Sister Harrison and Sister Shepard walking around the base of the dome.
Inside view of the cathedral ceilings.
More inside the Cathedral.
Mosaics done in stone.
Close up of mosaics.
A panel from a door to rival Lorenzo Ghibertti's baptistry in Florence.

I didn't get to spend as much time as I would have liked in the cathedral. I received a phone call from the St. Petersburg mission. They had arrived with the paintings of Amin. So I left the Harrisons and Sister Shepard and returned to the hotel. Amin is a local artist who was commissioned by the church to paint the 1903 scene of Elder Francis M. Lyman of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles dedicating Russia for the preaching of the gospel (two prayers were given, one in St. Petersburg and one in Moscow. I should have taken some pictures of his artwork, but I didn't. We had about 10 of his paintings displayed in our meeting room.

Later that evening we enjoyed dinner at a "fusion" restaurant (which interpreted means many different varieties of mostly eastern, but also Italian cuisine!!) It was great. We had quite a walk getting to the restuarant in a downpour, but the rains had subsided by the time we were ready to return to the hotel.

By the end of day Monday we had set up the conference room three different times, then on Tuesday morning, we set it up one more time. I called President Bennett and he came down and helped me rearrange the tables for the fourth and last time!

At 11:00 a.m. the sound people came in to install the microphones. They were finished about 10 minutes before the start of the meeting!! Not the way I would have planned it, but that's how it turned out. Just before I was ready to go into my meeting with the Area Presidency, I was asked if we had name tags for the visitors (all of the Mission Presidents, of course, already have name tags). (Sister Shepard had asked earlier in the planning process if name tags were needed, but at that time it was thought they were not.) So while I was in the meeting, she ventured out to find some name tags in gale force winds and rain (her umbrella turned inside out!!), but to no avail. Then, about 30 minutes before our meeting began, the St. Petersburg missionaries showed up with name tags (earlier they said that they didn't think they had any). So these are a few of the experiences that kept us on our toes on day one.

Later that night we went to a concert of Russian singing and folk dancing. At the intermission, I realized that I had left my wallet in a bag which I left in the meeting room. So Chris and I went back with a driver and I found it. I had earlier been asked to redo the table name tags and make them larger so Elder Perry could see them better, so I spent the next hour in the business office typing and printing new name tags. I finished just about the time everyone arrived back from the concert.

Wednesday was our day to go the the Peterhof Gardens (in the afternoon). But it had been so cold and wet, we were concerned that we would have to cancel this activity and go the Hermitage instead. At 10:00 I went outside to check the weather and it was very brisk. We checked with the sisters and they shared our concern about the temperature and the rain remained a wild card. So, we began to make plans to go to the Hermitage. Then we found out that much of what we had invested in the Peterhof trip would be nonrefundable. So we went back outside at just about noon to check the weather one more time. It was a little warmer. One of our concerns was that many of our participants didn't bring coats (after all this was August!!). So we checked with the hotel and they had blankets (for rent, of course). So at 1:45, after lunch, we headed to the Peterhof Gardens. It warmed up even more and the rains never came. The sun came very close to coming out! In fact, with the walking we were doing, the weather ended up being nearly perfect. Most just carried their blankets! Elder Perry tramped through the gardens with us for two hours. He is amazing.
Our group heading for the bus to take us to the hydrofoil. These are boats that have ski type bottoms that lift the boat right out of the water in the front, reducing the drag and increasing the speed!!
Elder Gibbons, with President Cranney (our mission president) and his wife Andria, behind.
Sister Shepard and Sister Gibbons.
On board with Elder and Sister Rasband (left), President and Sister Pieper (center) and Elder and Sister Perry (right).
Sister Shepard and Sister Steinagel.
Fountains in the Neva River on the way to the Peterhof Gardens.
Small canal engineered to take visitors to the palace from the river, which has by now become the Gulf of Finland. This part of the bay has a depth as little as 6 feet and no more 20 feet. It was sometimes referred as Peter's Puddle! A deeper canal was engineered in the middle of the river to allow cruise ships to get to St. Petersburg. According to our guides, these ships have to be navigated by Russian sailors to keep from hitting the bottom.
Our group heading out with one of our three guides. We had two for English speaking visitors and one for our Russians.
Along the canal heading for the Palace. These fountains are over 300 years old. They are gravity fed and require no electricity or pumps. The water comes from a place about 80 kilometers (60 miles) away. There are fountains everywhere, even on the roofs of buildings, as you shall soon see!!
Main cascades.
Central Fountain.
My Eternal Assistant!!
My Eternal Assistant with her Eternal Executive Secretary!!
The church (which we have seen on every large estate). Only this one is a little glitzier!!
Fountains on the roof!
President Bennett and President Steinagel.
Another Fountain!
Flowers. There were many varieties and enough to cut!!
Flower designs!
Whimsy! This was a fun tree that sprinkled water everywhere. Adjacent to this is a stone path that children walk on with their umbrellas held high thinking that there is a magic stone that turns on an arching fountain that shoots over their head. Little do they know that there is a man in a little shed that provides the majic. Peter the Great must have been a bit of a jokster, because there along one of the main garden paths is a series of about 100 jets running for about 50 feet on both sides of the path that shoot toward each other forming an arch. It turns on randomly. We walked across the wet crushed granite path, but managed to miss the fountains overhead.
Another fountain and statuary.
Two little babuskas having fun.
They are still having fun!!
Our mini-group picture. You can see the blankets we rented from the hotel to keep a few of the sisters warm. PS: I just learned how to make my pictures larger, but to make today's post larger, I would have to re-upload every picture. So from now on they should be larger, but I can't bear the thought of going through and re-posting these pictures. Sorry.
One last look before the boat ride back to the St. Petersburg.

Before dinner we gathered our group together and took our traditional group picture. There was a nice stairway that accommodated our group quite nicely.



AFter dinner, I worked on my minutes from the Tuesday morning meeting. When I finished I had 5 pages of typed notes.

By Thursday morning we knew we were on the downhill side. There were a number of changes to the departure schedule, but nothing that couldn't be accommodated. The first group departed at 1:00 p.m. A group that had a later departure schedule, went to the Hermitage. Sister Perry went with them, while Elder Perry stayed in the hotel. The day before was quite a hike for him, so I am sure he had had as much fun as he needed. A museum, as you know, is all walking!!

Sister Shepard and I left to go to our hotel for our extra night's stay at 2:00 p.m. We arrived without incident and were back on the streets in no time to check out the Hermitage, ourselves. We only wanted to find the Hermitage, so we could go back the next day, but when we got there, there was still two and a half hours till closing, so we went ahead and went in. The museum was very nice, but the building (The Winter Palace) is even more so. There is nothing quite like it in world, I am sure. The pictures will tell the story, better than I can.
Canal along the way to the Hermitage from our hotel.
Arch leading to the Hermitage.
The Hermitage under construction.
Looking back from the Hermitage to the arch.
The Hermitage without construction.

The Hermitage is made up of several buildings including the famous Winter Palace. The contruction was begun by Peter the Great, elegantly completed by Elizabeth his daughter, and actually lived in by Catherine the Great, who was devoted to beautiful architecture. It's heydays were the 18th and 19th centuries, beginning with the death of Elizabeth in 1761. As you can see once we got in, we, like Catherine the Great, were more interested in the architecture than the art!!










That completed our touring for Thursday. We took a stroll down Nevsky Prospect (the main drag in town) and ate dinner at Sbarros. The next morning, after breakfast we headed for Christ Church on the Spilt Blood. This church looks very similiar to St. Basils Cathedral, but it was built much later (completed in 1907 vs. the 1500's for St. Basil's Cathedral) and it is made out of stone.

Here is a little history from Wikipedia:

Construction began in 1883 under Alexander III, as a memorial to his father, Alexander II. Work progressed slowly and was finally completed during the reign of Nicholas II in 1907. Funding was provided by the Imperial family with the support of many private donors.

The Church is prominently situated along the Griboedov Canal. The embankment at that point runs along either side of a canal. As the tsar's carriage passed along the embankment, a grenade thrown by an anarchist conspirator exploded. The tsar, shaken but unhurt, got out of the carriage and started to remonstrate with the presumed culprit. Another conspirator took the chance to explode another bomb, killing himself and mortally wounding the tsar. The tsar, bleeding heavily, was taken back to the Winter Palace where he died a few hours later.

A temporary shrine was erected on the site of the attack while the project for a more permanent memorial was undertaken. It was decided that the section of the street where the assassination took place was to be enclosed within the walls of a church. That section of the embankment was therefore extended out into the canal to allow the shrine to fit comfortably within the building and to provide space on the exterior wall for a memorial marking the spot where the assassination took place. Inside, an elaborate shrine was constructed on the exact place of Alexander's death, garnished with topaz, lazurite and other semi-precious stones. Amid such rich decoration, the simple cobblestones on which the tsar's blood was spilled and which are exposed in the floor of the shrine provide a striking contrast. (We missed the cobblestone shrine.)

In July 1970, management of the Church passed to Saint Isaac's Cathedral (then used as a highly profitable museum) and proceeds from the Cathedral were funneled back into restoring the Church. It was reopened in August 1997, after 27 years of restoration, but has not been reconsecrated and does not function as a full-time place of worship. Right now, it is a Museum of Mosaic. Even before the Revolution it never functioned as a public place of worship; having been dedicated exclusively to the memory of the assassinated tsar, the only services served in it were panikhidas (memorial services). The Church is now one of the main tourist attractions in St. Petersburg.

It is very impressive, inside and out. The inside has about 6 feet of marble wainscoting and then to the very top of the catherdral it is covered with stone mosaics of saints and images from the new and old testaments. It took 14 years just to complete the mosaics. As you can see from the history referenced about that it took twice that long to restore it!!

From a canal bridge next to Nevsky Prospect.
Close up from the same direction.
Close up of gables.
Mosaics.
More mosaics.
Before and after restoration.
My eternal assistant, along the canal!!

All in all, St. Petersburg is quite a place. We had a busy, sometimes hectic week, but we had fun just the same!!

A 10- mile day

What a bummer! This is the first time blogger failed me. I just created a post and it did not post successfully. Then when I tried to hit the back button on the blogger, all that was left was the title of the post, but no post. Oh well, here we go again!

Yesterday, we walked for 10 miles as we roamed the trails of the Botanical Gardens next to the All Russian Exhibition. This is the most we have walked since we have been here. Chris legs are littered with broken blood vessels on both legs, from her ankles to above her knees!! I think we may have overdone it!! When we got back to the apartment, we both crashed and slept for about an hour and a half!!

The park was very pleasant (the weather was perfect), beautiful trees, but not much on flowers. There was a Japanese Tea Garden, but it was all locked up. So we wandered around for four hours looking for 20,000 roses. We found the signs to the Rose Garden, but we never did find the roses!!

We walked back to the metro through the All Russian Exhibition. There was a ton of construction projects going on and all the fountains except the ones at the main entrance to the park were turned off. The hugh exhibit hall that was used by people in the spring to sell every type of flower, seed or tree was completely empty. Early in the spring it was a beehive of activity.

Linda Nearon picked yesterday as her first day to venture out with the seniors. Though she reminded me several times that she was nearly 10-years my senior, she was really not complaining and held up admirably!! She treated everyone to an ice cream when we came to the end of the trail!

I had to take pictures with my new phone (I forgot to bring my camera). I don't have a cable to transfer the data to my computer, but Acia does, so I won't be able to post my pictures until we get back from St. Petersburg.

Last night, we talked with Nick who was getting ready for the arrival of tropical storm Fay(e). This little storm has hit the Florida coast 4 times already and just will not stop. You just shouldn't underestimate a storm with that name (Greg's mom's name!) We also talked with Jason and the girls. Chris talked to Emily and Joy, then I called my mom. She is a little concerned about how the relations between the U.S. and Russia have continued to deteriorate and thinks we should just come home. She said yesterday that at least we are getting something out of this mission (our trip to St. Petersburg). Then she confessed that we probably believe we are getting something else from the mission. On that point we were in total agreement!!

Follow the Process

Despite the frenzy of getting ready the seminar, we still find some time for fun! Here is a little song, inspired by Acia who started singing a new chorus to the tune of Follow the Prophet as we were getting ready for St. Petersburg. I thought the chorus deserved a song to go with it. You may have to sing this a bit like a country song, to make all the words fit!!

Elder Shepard came to Russia, to the Czar not to bow.
He was on a mission, he would help somehow.
“Write down your process,” was his battle cry.
Write it down today, don’t let a day go by.

Chorus
Follow the process, follow the process,
Follow the process; it won’t let you stray.
Follow the process, follow the process,
Follow the process; it’s the only way.

The first to be recorded was the Mission Presidents Report..
The process tells you step-by-step, it won’t leave you short..
Sister Samaykina was amazed when she published her report.
Missions were all baptizing, the numbers all went up.

Sister Abaneeva came from the town of Tomsk.
She loves the gospel and Novosibirsk the most.
She improved the District Conference Packet Process.
She has every conference report from Vladivostok to Odess….a.

If you think in Russian, Ukranian, and even Lithuanian,
Lativian and Estonian, Armenian and Bulgarian,
You would be our local pages editor and patriarchal blessings monitor.
Sister Kharlamova by name, she loves process just the same.
Her patriarchal blessing process puts a lot of people in the act,
Mission Presidents, Patriarchs and transcribers… over 1100 to be exact!

Sister Shepard has a process that is sometimes unpredictable.
The reason why, X-rays don’t lie, the problems are often medical.
Because she loves her missionaries she follows her process religiously.
Her best friend is a pen and a pad of yellow stickies.

If you don’t know your process, if you haven’t written it down
Your performance will suffer and you may lose your crown!!

The office secretaries are making great progress developing our Area Office process manual. Bolshoye Spaceba to all of them for their contributions. We are finding a better way!!

T minus 4 Days Till St. Petersburg

It is Thursday morning in Moscow, a little past 5:30 a.m. I have been not been sleeping through to sunrise lately. Today, I was up at 4:30 a.m. So I have had my dose of morning internet news and breakfast, so I thought I would hop on the blog for a few minutes.

The weather has finally cooled down abit. I think we should be on the downward side at this point. Days are getting much shorter. Wheresas in Allen you lose about a minute or two a day, we are losing over 5 minutes a day. So in a week we lose about a half an hour!! Today, the sunrise was at 6:13 a.m and sunset was at 8:51 p.m. By December 21 we will get to 8:58 for sunrise and 3:58 for sunset!! So between now and December 21 we will lose about 8 hours of sunlight!!

Hopefully, all of our materials will ship to St. Petersburg today. There are lots of last minute items, but I believe we should make it. What has suffered is Decisionpoint. We have meetings till noon today, and then I have two days of minutes to prepare from the last two days of presidency meetings. Yes, two days!! We fly out on Monday morning and return Friday evening.

We designed a CD label last night. Put together a fun little spreadsheet to summarize some survey data. Prepared a special handout of the entire EEA priesthood leadership, including photos of everyone. Took a tutorial on how to set up the broadcasting equipment for the translators. Sent out three documents for translation. I am still looking for a way to display between 15 to 20 pieces of art in our meeting room. And then I found out that I will be in a meeting for 2 to 3 hours prior to the start of our seminar to take the minutes of the Area Presidency's meeting with Elder Perry and Elder Rasband. And the beat goes on...

Practiced a little Russian with the Irelands and the Yorgeson's last night. Worked on vocabularly mostly and a few phrases. The progress is so slow...

Our pool pump burned out at home. We have had the pool less than five years and this will be our third pump. [Don't buy Hayward products. They don't even honor their warranty.] Brother Burns, from our ward, will install a new one on Saturday.

Real Russian History

I just finished my third, of what I thought was my final book on FDR, (well at least for the time being/I started this series before I came on a mission)then LaDawn gave me another book on FDR by David McCullough (which I left at her house the other night). She also gave me another McCullough book on the Panama Canal (I gave this to my Dad a couple of years ago (about six months before he cruised the canal), but I had not read it. I started the Panama Canal book, but after reading about pickled people, it was easy to pick up another book that had been given to Chris by Marina, one of the secretaries in our office. It is called Natasha's Dance, a cultural history of Russia. I read the following passage the other night. I believe this incredible piece of history is only possible in Russia. I apologize to musicians wherever you may be!!

"Serfs were essential to the Sheremetev palaces and their arts. From the 200,000 census serfs the Sheremetevs owned [which probably means they owned more than a 1,000,000], several hundred were selected every year and trained as artists, architects and sculptors, furniture makers, decorative painters, gilders, engravers, horticulturalists, theatrical technicians, actors, singers and musicians. Many of these serfs were sent abroad or assigned to the court to learn their craft. But where skill was lacking, much could be achieved through sheer numbers. At Kuskovo there was a horn band in which, to save time on the training of players, each musician was taught to play just one note. The number of players depended on the number of different notes in a tune; their sole skill lay in playing their note at the appropriate moment[!!]"

We went out on Saturday to the Moscow zoo. It's not quite what you would call a world class zoo, but it was interesting. Many exhibit areas were empty but we were treated to bears that had been conditioned, over time, to entertain park visitors by waving to onlookers, hoping to get a little something to eat.

Our group outside the zoo waiting for the ticket booths to open. Bear working for food. Chris working at food (notice telltale Snickers wrapper on the bench!! Not quite Donald Duck!!

There was also a horse riding school adjacent to the zoo, where girls were practicing jumping their horses. When they raised the bar, one horse, actually the only horse with a rider with the skill to take the jump, refused to jump. With much prodding and subsequent whipping of the horse by the rider and the coach, the poor horse finally did make the jump, but the spectacle of beating the horse was more than we could bear, so we just walked off.

In the afternoon, we went to the Asian market so that Sam could buy a new bag to haul his stuff in. By this time it was getting very warm and inside the market it was oppressive. Chris nearly had a meltdown, between the heat and humidity and the masses of people. We had been joined that day with Chuck Johnson and his boss Vicki. I think by the time we found our way out of the market they had seen just about as much of Russia as they could take in in one day!!



After church, we had dinner at the Gibbons with Chuck Johnson and the Bensfields, members of our branch. LaDawn made three great salads with melons and hot homemade rolls. It was delicious. I couldn't pick a favorite salad, that's how good they were!!

Today, we have our presidency meeting and a final review of our seminar needs. It looks like everthing is in order, but I am sure we will have some excitement before we through. What would life be like without a few challenges.

I got my new phone yesterday (the last one was stolen) and successfully transferred all my data from my temporary phone to the new one. That saved me from having to enter about 50 phone numbers, though we could have proabably re-entered the data by the time we figured out how to transfer the data.

Georgia

This if from a CNN posting I pulled off this morning. It seemed like a fairly reasonable assessment of the current situation.

LONDON — As Georgians and South Ossetians began sweeping out burned buildings and gathering up the shrapnel fragments one thing was clear, this is a fragile cessation of hostilities, not yet a peace settlement.Russian and Georgian authorities are each accusing the other of violating the cease-fire terms and of as-yet unverifiable war crimes and genocide. Resolving such accusations could take years in the international court.

More immediately, key questions about the status of the disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia remain to be settled. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov seems now to be suggesting that the populations of the two disputed territories should be involved in that decision.

Negotiating on behalf of the European Union, French President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted: “We need and require that the Russian side guarantees the sovereignty of Georgia.”

Back came his Russian counterpart Dimitry Medvedev to warn: “We recognize the sovereignty of Georgia … but this does not mean that a sovereign state should have the possibility to do what it wants.”

That has not stopped Russia using its vast military strength to crush a neighbor of whom it disapproves, mostly because Georgia wants to join the EU and NATO.

The Russian military action in Georgia was not undertaken just with President Mikheil Saakashvili and Tbilisi in mind. Russia’s first military incursion into another country since the break-up of the old Soviet Union was a deliberate demonstration that Vladimir Putin’s Russia (and the conduct of the conflict made absolutely clear that it is still Putin’s, not Medvedev’s Russia) does not care about popularity.

Russia will settle for the respect due to a re-emerging power ready to make cynical use of its military might. It is not operating in the 21st century style of diplomacy. It has succeeded in re-drawing the map by the force of arms and shows no regrets about having done so.

The action in Georgia was also a deliberate signal that Russia does not forget slights and that, sooner or later, it will revenge itself for them. Calling the military action in Georgia a “peace enforcement operation” deliberately echoed NATO language over Kosovo’s breakaway from Serbia, a reminder that Russians see the West as employing double standards over separatist movements there and in South Ossetia.

The message Russia wanted above all to deliver to its near neighbors was that Moscow still remains determined to resist ‘encirclement’ and that those who flirt with joining NATO, entering the EU or co-operating with the U.S. missile defense plan in Europe will rue the consequences.

NATO’s promise to Saakashvili at its Bucharest summit in April that Georgia’s membership was a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ seems to have emboldened Georgia’s president and his country to launch the assault on South Ossetia’s separatists, thus falling into a Russian trap and enabling Putin and Medvedev to claim they were intervening to protect Russian passport holders in South Ossetia.

And although France, Germany and others refused in April to grant Georgia and Ukraine the NATO Membership Action Programs demanded by President George W. Bush, the encouraging noises issued then about the longer term prospects for joining the alliance clearly stoked up false expectations in Tbilisi.

A cry that journalists in Georgia have encountered this week from puzzled, bombed out civilians was “Where was NATO when we needed it? Where were our supposed friends in the U.S.?” That sort of support was never, ever going to be forthcoming.

For Saakashvili, who came to office pledged to restore to Georgia the de facto separatist provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the sadness is that premature action has now probably lost him all chance of ever achieving that reunification.

The turnout at his post-invasion rally would seem to suggest that his presidency has at least temporarily been strengthened rather than weakened despite the dismemberment of the Army. As one Georgian put it to a reporter: “We elected him and if we don’t like him we’ll get rid of him ourselves, without Russia.” But the pulling together in adversity factor will not last him for ever.

As for Saakashvili’s hopes of taking Georgia into NATO, those too have taken a dive. Countries like France and Germany which were unwilling in April to anger Russia by giving Georgia a MAP will be even more reluctant to do so now when the issue formally comes up again in December.

And while some NATO members will argue that Russia cannot be allowed to wield a veto over NATO’s club membership the opponents of Georgian entry will argue that would-be members have to demonstrate firm territorial borders, plus economic and political stability, qualifications which Georgia may have trouble in meeting in the near future. What shape is the Georgian Army in now to make a contribution to NATO?

The other question which arises is how those countries who wish to can penalize Russia for what they see as brutal over-reaction in Georgia. It is all very well for U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, even Condoleezza Rice, to suggest that Russia’s world standing will fall and that Moscow must be punished. But do they have anything better than plastic sabers to rattle?

The West has spent two decades drawing Russia into the solving of communal problems like climate change and terrorism. It needs Moscow’s cooperation in persuading Iran not to develop nuclear weapons.

Even in a gentler version of realpolitik than that espoused by Vladimir Putin, it is not going to throw away all that to please four million affronted Georgians, whatever gesture politics we may now see over cancelled joint military exercises and cultural exchanges.

Update on Georgia

This has been an interesting experience, reading and listening to both the US and Russian media. Every perspective is quite different from the other. The Georgians claim that the Ossetians fired on them, killing about 10 people. Then they retailiated. The Russians claim that they were acting as peacekeepers and swept in to aid the poor and defenseless people of Osettia. The Georgians would say that the break-a-way provinces are run by thugs. The Russians have offered the people in the break-a-way provinces citizenship if they want it. The Americans are blamed for training and aiding the Georgian army. Some conspiracy theorists claim that the Americians may have acutally instigated the conflict. The Russians have been accused of using a sledge hammer to drive a nail. Of two things there is little doubt, there is much destruction and hundreds of people have been killed. (Russian TV is very graphic.)

The good news is that are missionaries are safe. We are safe. And there seems to be something close to a cease fire, now that Russia has pulled back.

Georgian Conflict

As I was surfing the web for the latest news on the Georgian conflict, I found this picture. When I saw this poor old woman sitting amongst the ruins of her former apartment building, I couldn't help but think what her life was like just a week ago. How quickly our lives can be turned upside down.

We, as you, are hoping that this conflict ends as quickly as it started. We have two branches in Tiblisi, the largest city in Georgia. We feel for the saints there and all of the people of this desperately poor country. On Saturday, as the fighting only showed signs of escalating, the missionaries were evacuated. The mission president was in Tiblisi at the time and was able to organize the evacuation himself. We expect that they are all safe in Armenia at this time.

The Irelands were in Georgia just the week before training our senior missionar couples there. We are glad to have them back safe and sound. We got together with them yesterday for dinner and made an exploratory run to the Tverskaya area. They showed us where Goodman's Steak House is and we took them to the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. We were hoping to find a cultural event to go to, but the Russian language did not reveal much to us on the billboards outside the theater. So we will have to ask our Russian secretaries to help us find a suitable event next week. We also talked about going to the Zoo in the next few weeks while we still have good weather.

We had talked about a having a picnic next Saturday, but there hasn't been much discussion on this subject lately. So, we will have to follow up on that next week, as well.

Yesterday's Area Council came off without a hitch. Most importantly, the video conferencing worked well. Everyone was in there seats and ready to go just a few minutes before starting time!!

After the Area Council (which ran over by about 15 minutes) I came home to pick up David Nearon and we were going to travel to Cokol together (I had the transportation tickets, Linda had taken theirs with her with Chris). But when I got back to the apartment (according to my clock at 2:45) he had already left (according to his clock 2:50). We are going to have to synchronize our clocks!!

I rang and rang the door bell. I thought I could have raised the dead, but no luck with David. I called Linda and explained the situation and her only advice was to try again. I did but with not luck. So I called Linda back and she decided to stay around the Tverskaya area to look for David in case he had already left. They were going to meet for an early dinner at TGI Fridays and then go the Russian Folk Dance performance. She waited her allotted period of time and then decided to come back to the apartment. Unfortunately, the Nearons only have one cell phone. When she got back home, David was not in the apartment (we thought he just might be in a deep sleep). I guess it was about an hour later, David arrived home. He said he had a good meal at TGI Fridays. So she must have just missed him. Since we had been in that area earlier, I went to TGI Fridays to look for him, but I didn't have any better luck. So at last they were united, but I don't think they made it to Russian Folk Dance performance as it turned out. Too much excitement for one day, I think!!

Saturday is Area Council

Tomorrow, Chris and Linda Nearon have planned a girls day out, while I will particpate in an Area Council Meeting at the office. An Area Council is made up of the Area Presidency and Area Seventy. We have four Area Seventies, so with me that will make eight of us. Four will be in Kyiv and four will be in Moscow. We will hold a video conference between these two cities.

We are in the final countdown for St. Petersburg. We will be glad to get this one behind us. So many details and one more set of meetings and minutes between me and the first day of the seminar. President Paul asked if we had a good checklist. I told him we had one. We'll know how good it is once we get back to Moscow!!

We are going to have two cultural events in addition to instruction from Elder Perry and Elder Rasband. We will attend a Russian Folk Dance Presentation on the opening night of seminar and a boat ride to the Peterhof Gardens in the afternoon of the second day. I have seen a few pictures of the gardens on the internet. It was surely created in the style of the Versailles. But instead of just marble statues, everthing I saw was gilted gold!!

The Cascades at the Peterhof Gardens
We saw some of the opening ceremony of the Bejing Olympics on Russian television tonight. I thought the fireworks were spectacular--so much color! And the man running around the 360 degree tv screen at the top of the stadium to light the torch was pretty cool too. Let's hope that the games go smoothly and that oil continues its downward slide. It was $116 barrel today.

I have a 9:00 appointment with my landlord tomorrow...it's time to pay the rent!! Then I am off to the office. Stay in touch.

Nothing Compensates Like Persistence

I couldn't wait to get back in the saddle today. I marched over to the office, confident that I could slay the Microsoft dragon!! I started the document from scratch. I put in all the complicated elements that wouldn't work the day before, then I carefully pasted the elements of my orignal corrupted document into the newly minted structure I had created that morning...and it worked...like a charm. It wasn't me afterall...it was Microsoft!!! So I remembered something that I learned long ago, but which is easily forgotten, have faith in your process, don't quit and you will have success sooner or later. Today, it just happened to be a little later!!

FHE was cancelled due to lack of interest. Not. But there were a number of couples out of town, Linda Nearon has a froggy throat and the McCunes were just too busy. We will resume next week.

We had a long video conference with Jessica. Her webcam worked very well. It was a very clear picutre, we lost the sound from time to time, but we could hear her perfectly. Sound quality was a lot like Sarah's and Jason's. The boys were great and Savannah was just a little entertainer, singing her abc's and twinkle, twinkle little stars!!

Congratulations to Billy, his boss is leaving and he was offered her job. Not bad for a couple of week's work!! Good job Billy!

Hope you are all well.

Learning to Smile in the Face of Adversity!!

So today I tried to stay calm. Relaxed. I would figure out in just a few minutes what I couldn't figure out last Friday night. Minutes turned to hours, then it was the end of the day. I could not get Microsoft Word 2007 to perform properly from section to section with different headers. I was certain I was doing it right, so as soon I got home, I tried the same operations on Word 2000 and it worked like a charm. There must be a glitch in some other part of the formatting that is in the document that is causing it behave in such a bizare manner. Hours burned never to again be reclaimed. Oh, that I were a real document processor!!

Then there are the transcribers who do not have Acrobat 8.0. They cannot complete their English transcriptions, because they cannot open the template that was created in 8.0. It is not as easy as just giving them the software they need. They are not employees. Our licenses are for employees only. So we may have to go buy the software again locally, from a local provider. Days turn into weeks and still they wait for their Patriarchal Blessings.

So what have I learned? How have I grown? Have I gained more patience? I am afraid there is very little evidence of either. I can smile. I can say that I can take it my stride, but it would be a lie. Nothing frustrates me like a computer that won't do what I expect it should do. I still get just as frustrated, but I didn't even think of a bad word, like shucks or swell or so how's your ol' man (a line from the movie The Music Man). Is that a hint of progress?? I will tackle it again tomorrow, "after all, tommorow is another day!!" (Scarlett's last words in Gone with the Wind).

Eclipsed in Novosibirsk and Well-Heeled in Moscow

The perfect place to be on the planet to view the total eclipse yesterday would have been Novosibirsk. Acia, one of our office secretaries is from Novosibirsk, so she found a live internet broadcast of the eclipse for all of us in the office to watch. The only thing better than the eclipse was Acia's excitement! A video of the eclipse as seen from Novosibirsk can be found at http://en.rian.ru/video/20080801/115408915.html.

Novosbirsk is located in Siberia. It is the hometown of one of eight missions in Russia. It is Russia's third largest city.

We viewed the eclipse from Moscow, but the sun was only about 50 percent covered. You might wonder why the Russians thinks this is such a big deal since most of the time the sun is covered 100 percent!!!!!

The graphic below shows the path of the eclipse. The picture above I pulled off the internet. It was actually taken from China.



A not so well publicized event was the Red Square 80 meter high-heel sprint. You have heard us talk about Russian women and their spike heels. This video shows a girl winning 100,000 roubles for out sprinting the rest of the competition (http://en.rian.ru/video/20080722/114659086.html). If they can do this, we shouldn't worry too much about them walking on the ice in winter!

Making a Little Progress

This past couple of weeks have been very productive. By the end of the day today, we should have produced our third patriarchal blessing report, with good progress, thanks mostly to Olga, who is really plowing through her transcription assignments. We have documented a few more office processes (e.g., boundaries, leadership and district conferences and mission tours), completing our initial slate of processes. We have also identified a number of others that need similar attention. We have successfully created and posted our Area Seventy Calendar in Outlook on the web, so now the mission presidents and staff have immediate access to the most current calendar. The only problem is that it is not read-only. This makes me more than a little nervous. If we can't protect the calendar we might have to maintain a second one as a backup. That would be a real pain! We have also completed a number of important details for the August Annual Mission President Seminar. This week we finalized all of our travel arrangements for the 55 individuals who will be attending. This includes a rather detailed schedule of shuttling individuals to and from the airport and a number of train stations in St. Petersburg. Chris has both cultural events and transportation completed, as well. Now is it just a matter of fine tuning our plans as we move forward.

We try to make the most of these little gifts of time (whenever the Area Presidency is out of town)to catch up on these sort of things. Somehow, the balance of activities and the time to do them always seems to work out.

On Tuesday, we had a very special FHE at the Nearons, with each of the senior missionaries sharing their most poignant moments of church experience. Too sacred to record here, but we were all touched by how the spirit works in families and how connected we feel as a group, having known each other for just a short time.

We had suprise house guests on Wednesday morning. On Tuesday evening, I got a call from Jonathan and Whitney. They had just finished their tour of Kyiv and were comming back to Moscow to catch a train to Samara, the next afternoon. They were taking an overnight train to Moscow and were getting in around 6:30 in morning and were wondering if they could crash for a while in our apartment and take showers. It worked out well, because we were going shopping that morning. So they arrived about 8:00 a.m. and we took off around 8:30 to go shopping, so they had the place to themselves. They were just getting ready to leave when we returned and were able to get a lift from Yuri, our driver, to the train station. Funny how things just kind of work out.

Shopping was a success. It's always fun to have food in our cupboard. I think we could probably survive for a couple a months at the moment, just filling in with fruits and vegetables and freshly baked bread.

We talked with Jason and Abby this week, who are in the middle of moving into their new homes. Abby is already in and Jason, will follow in a couple of weeks. Abby had her mom to help her get settled. Nick is still in training. He graduates in about 10 days. Abby and Lore will fly out for Nick's graduation and they will drive back together. While Nick is settling in Alabama about 600 miles from Dallas, Jason is moving about .5 mile away, but to a home with a much better floor plan than the one they are in currently. I checked both of them out on Google earth. Pretty cool technology. I just wish when you zoomed in it would be a little clearer. Still looking for pictures!!!

We also had a great little video conference with Sarah and Gregorio. He is getting bigger!!

It has been a little bit like Dallas with big thunderstorms lately. It really cooled off for a couple days...down in the 50's. But it is back into the 60's now and it is expected to get back into the mid 70's by the weekend. (For those of you in Dallas, I am sure that doesn't sound much like a summer weather report. I guess I was thinking more about thunderstorms and hail, than temperature.)

At sunset last night I took this picture of the big apartment building that we can see out of our window, which is near the Cokol metro station. The photo actually does a pretty decent job of capturing the intensity of the reflection that we observed on its tower (click on the photo to get a larger image). It was as though it had been gilded in gold and set in the noon day sun.