Welcome to our world...

This week rent was due and we thought you might like to see how we pay it.  We must pay in cash and for three months at a time.  We get the rubles from an ATM but have to take out the money over a two day period.  Here you see 105 - 1000 ruble/rouble bills.  It is kind of scary transporting large amounts of cash from the ATM to our apartment.  We're always glad when the landlord comes and it is safely in his care!

We decided to try something new for FHE this week.  We did a photo scavenger hunt.  They had never done such a thing and we couldn't believe the excitement.  We had a list of things that they had to run around the area and take pictures of...the first team back won!  This week we had a slide show of the pictures that each group took.  This shows how they had to have their picture taken holding dandy lions.  I might add...they are in rich abundance around here!  L to R:  Eulia, just returned from a mini mission and I am helping her with her Enlgish and she is helping us with our Russian...next is Nadia, our investigator with a baptism date...you can barely see Olga, doesn't want to investigate the church but loves FHE, and on the far right is Artum, the branch cook and friend to all!  We have moved FHE from Monday to Tuesday so that those young adults that have FHE with family members on Monday can come and participate.  The future of the church is with our wonderful, young adults!

Feorda had his Balalaika concert and we were able to attend...what a talented young man.  L to R: Elders Weber and Silva (they are teaching Feorda) Elder Pocock and myself, Nadia, Feorda and Mela and Nadia's mother.

This week was the big wedding for Masha and Slava.  All day Friday, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. we had members of Masha'a family and the branch come to our apartment to prepare food for the wedding feast...and it was a feast!  Here is Masha's mom making Russian bread tarts that were filled... some with a porridge (not my favorite) and others with mashed potatoes...very tasty.

Here is Olga mixing up a very complicated dessert.  The sugar had to be browned to perfection, then the ingredients added in the precise order and amount!  Masha and Slava have a very strict diet.  They don't eat any meat, or any food that is cooked for that matter.  They struggled with what to serve their guests and finally compromised...some cooked food but no meat!

I have never seen so many figs in my life!  Svetlana, Tanya and I pitted the figs, mashed them, formed them into balls, and rolled them in crushed sunflower seeds.  They were a tasty treat.  The branch was so supportive and helpful.   Because many of them are the only members in their family, they have become like family to one another.   Whenever a big event is happening in one of the members lives...everyone is there to help and to celebrate.

Saturday, May 26, the wedding day finally arrives!  Masha wanted to have a "traditional" Russian wedding. She invited us to her home Saturday morning to experience it.  Slava, the groom arrives in his brother-in-law's car.  Atop the car are two gold rings...this is what the Russians do instead of our tradition of cans behind the car.

The groom and his following must go to the bride's home and go through a series of qualifying demands. As he passes each requirement, he gets one step closer to the front door.  Now remember they live in an apartment and he must go up several steps!

Once inside their apartment, he is blindfolded and he must feel the hands and faces of several young women to see if he can determine which is his bride to be!

The Bride and Groom-to-be toast their future together.  After this, they go to the Administration Building and are married by a government official.  This is required in Russia in order for them to be legally married.  No one but Masha and Slava attended.

After the government ceremony, Slava and Masha return to the branch where our Branch President performs a very simple ceremony for their family and friends.  Masha looked so beautiful.  They left on a train right after the wedding party for their new home, Sochi, by the Black Sea. (This is also the location for the 2014 Olympics). This is near the area where Masha served her mission and she wanted to return there to live.  We already miss her.  They are planning on meeting our Branch members in the Ukraine in June to be sealed in the Kiev temple.

This gives you a feel for their traditional Russian wedding look.  They are coming down the hallway of the branch.

Let the party begin!!!  We ate and danced and ate and visited and ate and laughed and ate and cried (for joy.)  Masha made aprons and stenciled a bouquet on each one for her female guests.  She insisted that I wear a blouse of hers that was traditionally Russian.  She asked if I could find a skirt that was red, green, or blue (she must be tired of seeing me in my missionary grey and black!) The Sisters took me to a Second Hand store that was in three HUGE rooms of a warehouse.  I found a red skirt for $1.50!  So I literally wore everything Russian to the wedding.  Look at the adorable balloon rose bouquet on the table.
From what I could tell, it a perfect day and there is no one more deserving than our dear friend, Masha.

Three of our dear missionaries have left for home!  It is always so sad to say goodbye, but how well I remember when our daughters were coming home...so I also feel the joy of those waiting for their return.

The Perm Zone got hit hard this transfer... Sister Knol and Sister Parkinson are leaving...to the right of Elder Pocock and I are Elder Brinton and Elder Silva, who are being made zone leaders, and they are being transferred and then Elder Waddington is heading for home as well.  So we have five new missionaries coming soon...two sisters (one is just barely in the country) and three elder transfers.  Oh boy, more missionaries to love!

Speaking of missionaries...here is Sasha Ustyuzhaninov  He is with his brother, our Branch President.  Sasha is opening up his mission call to.......St. Petersburg!  What a beautiful place to go. We are thrilled
to have another missionary representing our little branch.

This week there are a ton of pictures...

FHE is one of our favorite nights of the week.

Nadia (baptism set for June) her son, Feorda and daughter, Mela have been on vacation.  We missed them so much.  We celebrated by having them over for dinner and an investigator lesson for Feorda.  He gave us a mini concert that we cut way down in hopes that you can enjoy.  Sorry about the Russian singing video that didn't work last week. Let's hope this one does.

This week we took an hour and a half trip to Ugokomske to visit a wonderfully active member, Olga.  She comes all that way most every Sunday to church.  We went with our wonderful sisters who only have
days left on their mission!

We saw another side of Russia!  It was so beautiful...rolling hills, farmland, villages nestled in the hills as you can see below.

We even got into a forested area.

Welcome to Ugokomske.  As soon as we got off the bus, we walked to the nearby reservoir and breathed in the fresh air...free from smoke and pollution.  It was so refreshing.

This is our dear Olga.  She was married for 25 years to a man that would not allow her to participate in her new found religion.  They didn't have any children and so she left the Ukraine and moved five years ago...back to her home town to live with her mother.  She is a teacher of English in a small school here in her community. She served us a delicious lunch.  It was a cold soup (for hot days)...tasty!

Meet Olga, her 80 year old mother and her sister.  Olga's sister is married with two children and a new grandchild.  They live about 3/4 mile from Olga and her mom.  They have a large backyard (which is very rare in Russia) where the 80 year old mother works day in and day out.

Now this family is serious about gardening!  They built this hot house, and the oldest of the three women walks the 3/4 mile a minimum of twice a day to cover and uncover her vegetables.  She spends the day "weeding, picking the bugs off the plants and watering the plants with warm water" that she collects in a variety of old bathtubs in the yard and lets the sun heat it. Absolutely no pesticides.  She said that it is much better for the newly sprouting plants to have water warm.  From the looks of the garden...I think this is better than Miracle-Grow!

Here Grandma is watering her tomato plants that she won't put out until the end of May.  She started these from seeds in March.  We participated in a lesson for Olga's Mom.  She has been a widow for over 50 years!  We talked of the Plan of Salvation. What a sweet lady. Olga is retiring from her teaching job and moving to Perm sometime this summer.  She is wanting to be closer to the church and be able to participate in more of the activities.  She will have to find another teaching job because even after 30 years teaching...her pension is not enough to support her.  Olga promised me that she would come to America and visit us!  It was a delightful visit and such a treat to see what lies beyond the hectic city life!

While walking with the Elders to visit an inactive...a man ran across the street and asked for help with his car.   All in a days work...

Meet Lenna and Tanya.  Tanya is the ice skater that has appeared on our blog early on.  These gals are also English teachers.  They took us on a walk Sunday evening down by the Kama River.  The city Perm follows the Kama. We had a thunder storm, but it didn't stop us.  These two gals participate in our English Conversation Group each week and also attend FHE.  They have been so helpful in showing us around and introducing us to many cultural activities that Perm offers.

We have been here almost four months and this is our first visit to the banks of the Kama.  Two large bridges take many across to Komske, where we have several members of our branch.

In the distance, you can see the sea port that is still in use.  We saw some barges travelling the river.  They also have large tourist ships that give daily rides in the summer.

On the way home, we passed Gorky Park.  If you have followed the blog at all, you may remember the pure ice slide at this park.  Now we will show you the fun they have in the summer...

Meet Slava...our fun, red-headed investigator (on the far right) with a baptism date!!!  Here he is with some of the youth at a FHE activity.  Thanks for patiently enduring our weekly adventurers.  The weeks pass quickly and we are getting so attached to the wonderful people we are meeting here.  They carry a heavy load helping this little branch; they are valiant spirits!  I am proud to have them in my life.

What a wonderful week!  FHE was the largest group yet...21 young adults packed into our apartment.  In our lesson, we shared feelings on the Family Proclamation.  This revelation is so important for families everywhere!  The majority of families we have met have only one parent and most families rely on the grandparents because both or the one parent must work.  If our young adults would embrace the Proclamation and its' teachings...what a difference it would make in their lives. 

We went to visit this sweet sister, Luba (which translated means love). She works full time feeding patients in a hospital.  She loves her work.  She lives in a one room apartment with a shared kitchen and bath!  This single hide-a-bed is where she sleeps.  The closet to your left is where she keeps her clothes.  She has her grandson over on her days off.  He hung on the doors of her closet and broke them off...so Elder Pocock came to the rescue and repaired them. She works two days on...two days off, so she is only able to attend church two weeks of the month.  She is a lovable sister!  The rest of the day was spent teaching an investigator, teaching piano lessons, altering missionaries suit pants, and packing for our visa trip!

   

Every three months, visitors to Russia must leave the country and renew their visa.  It was hard to believe that our three month time had come.  The church must fly their foreign missionaries to either Finland or the Ukraine for this process.  They send us to a country that has a temple so that we can enjoy the blessings of temple attendance and complete the necessary visa requirements.  We left for the Perm airport at  five a.m.!  This is all that we saw of the capital, Moscow.  We had a long layover, but it being our first trip...we were quite content to walk the halls and take pictures from the airport.  Next time we will get a little more daring and if time allows, maybe see a little more of Moscow.

We made it through the maze of passport/customs control in both the Moscow and Helsinki airports with great relief!  We took a taxi outside of the airport and were thrilled that the young driver from Somalia spoke great English.  Finland is beautiful.  The driver told us that they get a lot of moisture and a ton of snow and you can see the results...it is lovely.

I took this picture of farmland ready to plant and individual family dwellings that we rarely see in Perm.

The Helsinki temple is located in a suburb called Espoo.  It took us about 20 minutes from the airport.  This is a view of our approach to the temple.

It is a beautiful temple, built on a bluff.  We got our room at the hostel that is just across the street from the temple, and then ran to the temple for their final session.  There is a driveway where patrons can be dropped off right at front of the door, or these steps that provide a gorgeous view.

As you would expect, the grounds are manicured and there is a very peaceful feeling in this wooded area.

This is the hostel that the church provides for members to stay when they come to participate at the temple. Because people must travel so far to attend the temple, this is really a wonderful service. The accommodations are very reasonable, clean and comfortable.  The temple president and his wife live here as well as the foreign temple workers.  The earliest session begins at ten a.m. and the latest is six p.m., making it five sessions a day with an additional one on Saturdays.  We got up on Friday morning to get to the eight a.m. session only to find that they don't start until ten.  Finland is three hours behind us in Perm,  so when we got out of the temple on Thursday night, it was eight their time, but it was eleven p.m. for us!  It was a long day but how wonderful to be in a temple again.

We woke up to rain on Friday, May 11, 2012.  Everywhere we looked from the second story windows we saw trees and more trees.  This day was dedicated to completing our dear friend Michael's mothers temple work.  The workers were so accommodating and everything went as planned.  It was a very spiritual experience.  Michael is no longer alone in the church!  As I sat in the temple, there was a sister from Russia to my left, a sister from Finland to my right, and I thought this is what it is all about.  We are all brothers and sisters!

This is the main area past the check in desk.  Next to this room they have a TV room with toys for children, a piano, plus a computer that has a keyboard with multiple alphabets on it.  Straight ahead they have a lovely dining area.  It was totally fun to talk to the American temple missionaries.  I thought that the Russian language was difficult, but the Finnish language is the hardest by far!!!

This is the dining room with two complete kitchens.  To the far left of the picture you can see four refrigerators.  There are two more in the kitchen areas.  These are assigned to the rooms.  Each room has four bunk beds, closets, lockers, a lovely shower, and bathroom.  When it is busy, women are assigned to one room and men to another.  We stayed at a slow time so we got our own room. You are required to clean it when you leave but for the convenience, it was little to ask.  We walked about a mile to a nearby market and got us some food so that we could prepare our own meals.

Here is a lovely patio for eating during warmer, drier weather.

Goodbye Helsinki.  What a wonderful experience we had.  I have to tell you that both the Aeroflot Airline in Russia and the Finnair Airline in Finland serve meals (small and simple) but non-the-less, they
do serve more than a drink and peanuts.

Helsinki from the air...the Baltic Sea in the distance.

Below you see Moscow from the air.  You can see that there are many individual homes in this area.  The young people told us that Moscow is where Russia puts a lot of its money.  It is a tourist stop and it is cleaner and kept really nice...according to the young people here in Perm.

We got home about eight Saturday night. As we got off the elevator and rounded the corner to our apartment...taped to our front door we saw this candy bar card from the dear sisters in our zone!  We have totally enjoyed the candy!!!

Our dear friends, the Skows, who are the mission office couple, sent me this Mother's Day/Birthday greeting from some Elders in the Ekat area.  Click on the arrow in the middle.

Flowers from the Sisters of the branch for my Birthday on Sunday.  A special thank you for all your email cards, emails, and skype calls.  We feel your love and pray that you can feel our Heavenly Father's watchful care.  Have a great week!