Welcome to our Christmas celebration in Russia.  Elders Wimber and Holbrook were so kind to invite Elder Pocock and I to have lunch with them on Christmas Eve afternoon. They had heard of a great Italian/Japanese restaurant and we decided to give it a try.  So good and soooo reasonable!  Notice the size of the portions...Russian restaurants serve very healthy size portions...no super sizing here, not even in MacDonalds!

Our packages don't go directly to our apartments...in fact, we've never seen a mailman!  Not sure how the rest of Perm gets their mail, but all missionary mail goes to the mission home in Yekaterinburg and our zone leaders bring it back to Perm when they return from their monthly zone leader council.  So if a package doesn't reach the mission home before zone leader council...it sits at the mission home for a month!  This is what happened with our sisters' Christmas packages.  So as a zone, we decided that we would put together a Christmas box for the sisters.  The elders were so generous and thoughtful, many sharing some of their gifts from home...it added that special spirit of giving to our Christmas.  Elder Pocock played Grandfather Frost and we left the mystery package at their door.  It was so fun to listen to their squeals of delight when they opened the door and saw the package addressed to them!

Our wonderful sister missionaries...Sister Galli (L) from Georgia and Sister Tikhanova from Irkutsk, Russia.  It is always 20 degrees colder there than here in Perm!

Our Christmas morning started early (at 6:45 a.m.) with missionaries Skyping their families.  Our kitchen was a blur of activity as each companionship worked on their contribution to the meal.  Our zone leaders, Elders Duggar and Prestwich are busy making the rolls, and the sisters are creating an artistic veggie tray!

Here's our new zone gathered around the Christmas dinner table.  We had ham (couldn't find a traditional spiral ham or anything like it, but we found something that was very tasty)  cheesy potatoes, rolls, Elders Christiansen and Kaiser made a yummy chicken salad, and Elders Holbrook and Wimber provided delicious brownies to go along with my pumpkin pie plus the rolls and veggie platter.  We certainly didn't lack for things to eat!!!

It was a wonderful day where ten missionaries truly bonded as family.  Oh, we missed our loved ones at home...but celebrated having one another to share this holy holiday.

After dinner, we jumped into a service project.  Here some of the zone is busily threading popcorn for a tree garland.

Elders Christiansen (L) and Holbrook are tying ribbon on salt dough ornaments that the young adults painted earlier.  The garland and ornaments are for a tree to be given to a needy family.  You may think...wait it's already Christmas...what good are the decorations now?!  Remember, the Russian Christmas isn't until January 7 and they don't put up their trees until close to their New Year's eve celebration when Grandfather Frost comes.  Our celebrations just keep on going over here!

We gave every companionship a large jar of peanut butter...found it at the Metro.  Goodies galore...not that we need them, but we needed them!!!  Great comfort food.

After we finished with the tree decorations, we played some really fun interactive games and then watched The Nativity and several Bible videos off the internet.  Before we knew it, it was time to head to the branch for the annual Christmas party.  Our branch choir sang two Christmas numbers.  They really sing from the heart.

The Branch President's wife, Yulia and their little gals sang a beautiful song, part in Russian...part in English.  It was so well done and so touching.

This is a pano of the hall that is decorated beautifully and shows the great turnout for the lovely evening.  The program started out with President Monson's First Presidency Christmas message. We talked with the Relief Society sisters in the kitchen and they said that they fed approximately 80 people...that is just a few less than we have at church on Sunday!  They hadn't planned on that many attending but they felt that it was like feeding the 5,000...somehow there was enough for everyone!
This was a perfect way to end our Christmas celebration...mingling with the amazing saints from the Perm branch.

On a previous blog, we showed the stockings that we created for the branch members to sign for the missionaries and servicemen.  When we went to pick up the stockings to mail them...we found that the families had added goodies and gifts to be sent along with the stockings.  So we solicited the help of our zone leaders and dear sweet Lubov, her son is one of the servicemen.  They came to the post office with us to help mail the packages.  We wish all those away from home a very happy holiday season.

While we were waiting in the forever lines in the post office, Elder Pocock snapped pictures of the women in fur coats.  The following pictures show just a few of those we saw.  I would say that 50% of all the women's coats in Perm are fur of some kind.  They are beautiful.

I have to say that I love my long, goose-down filled coat.  It is perfect for the cold weather here, but when we are visiting inside of an apartment or a store...it gets sooooo unbearably warm.  A sister in the branch said that she loves her fur coat because it breathes with you...it's warm but never too warm.

On December 27, we had the most humbly experience.  We went with Elders Duggar and Prestwich to visit a family in their area.  We had to ride the bus for some time and then we literally hiked up and down several hills in about a foot of snow.  It was a beautiful night, not terribly cold because it had just snowed a great deal.  There was a full moon and the snow glistened from the glow.

Meet Laressa, the daughter, Lubova (age 8); under the covers is the son, Yarick (age 10) and the father, Alexei.  We had never met the mother...she is paralyzed from the waist down and can't get to church.  A beautiful young woman!  Lubova and Yarick come to church often.  Laressa and her son Yarick, are members.  Lubova just turned eight and was to be baptized this past Saturday, but her father had to work and wanted to attend.  We asked if we could go with the missionaries to meet Laressa and extend some love and attention to this little family.

Lubova is a very outgoing little gal.  She did a dance for us and told us that she wants to perform it after her baptism.  The branch is trying to figure out a way for Laressa to get to Lubova's baptism.  Now with all of the new snow... it is really going to be difficult.  We are hoping that something can be worked out.

Laressa has been bed-ridden for three years.  She has a wheelchair, but has to have help to get in it.  She was so vibrant...she asked many questions about our life, about America, about our family, about what we thought about this and that, how we celebrated the holidays, and on and on.  We could tell that she yearns to have people to communicate with. I am sure that she gets very lonely...we will definitely get back to see this little family SOON. The missionaries have been very attentive to them.

We took the children gifts and sugar cookies to frost and decorate.  It was so fun to be a part of their excitement.  One simple gift that we gave them was the Children's Book of Mormon Reader. Laressa was thrilled beyond measure.  She said that she so wants to read the stories of the Book of Mormon to her children, and she feels that this will help keep their attention.  When we walked out of their home that night, I thanked my Heavenly Father for a very sweet, spiritual experience. Indeed life is not fair...but it is what we do with what is allotted to us that determines who we really are!

Our dear friend, Tanya, the avid ice skater...invited us to go to a holiday ice skating performance.  The guests skaters were Perms very own 2012 European Silver Medal Champions...Vera Bazarova (age 19) and Yuri Larlonov (age 26).  They trained here in Perm until just recently.  They are amazing.  It will be very fun to watch them in the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.  (She had the most elegant, white fur coat!)

 They were totally amazing.  It was thrilling to sit on the front row and watch their incredible routine.  Young students from the skating academy in Perm performed as well.  You can already tell that there are budding olympians here in Perm.  This was all offered free to the public.

Afterwards, we accompanied Tanya, her grandmother and friend to the outdoor skating rink where Tanya skates everyday.  She just recently saved up enough to purchase new professional ice skates.

She gave us her own performance.  Way to go, Tanya!  Tanya is the English teacher that had invited us to do a presentation for her classes at the Police Lyceum.

It's beginning to look a lot like WINTER!

For those of you who have been following the evolution of our poor steps...here is how they look now. Believe me, we hang on to the railing.

In order to make a pathway to our apartment...our skating rink is getting piled high with snow!

One day later...it is three times higher!  When we came home from church today, children were digging tunnels in the snow and loving it.  We yelled to them: "Snov-em Go-dem" (written phonetically) which means Happy New Year in Russian...to our surprise they yelled back, "Happy New Year!"

There isn't much decorating for the holidays here...at least not in our area...so we were delighted to watch this from our kitchen window.  There is a little fir tree by the apartment across the way, and there a grandmother, mother and little boy took the initiative to decorate and brighten many neighbor's lives.

Yulia's little sister has been wanting to come to our apartment for some time...so we decided to have a cookie fest!  We cut out and baked sugar cookies and she frosted and decorated to her hearts desire.  Yulia said this was a first for both of them...we had a great time.

...and while we were celebrating the holidays here, some of our family celebrated at Temple Square.  Wherever you are this time of year...hope your holidays have been meaningful and memorable.