More adventures from Perm...

We hit a record -30 degrees celsius this past week.  We have never experienced it that cold and believe me... you not only knew it was cold...every fiber of your being sensed it!  We went on an hour and 15 minute bus ride to see our Relief Society president and this is what the windows of the bus looked like...we couldn't see a thing out the window.  The dark area is where Elder Dugger tried to defrost a peephole!  Then we walked about 4 blocks to her apartment...we walked very fast!

President Lubova (Lubov means "love" in Russian and she is truly full of love) lives in a very nice apartment.  She has a married son and a married daughter.  She, her husband, her son's family and her daughter's family all belong to different faiths but they have found a way to encourage and support one another in their beliefs.  Sister Lubova and her husband sold their larger apartment and purchased this very nice but smaller apartment so they could help their son purchase a place for he and his little family.

Sister Lubova is an amazing cook and she shared her talents with us.  Elders Dugger and Prestwich loved the homemade pelmeni (cooked pasta stuffed with ground pork) and her delicious salsa made with veggies from their dacha garden.  She also made a yummy frozen salad from strawberries that her family had picked in the forest near their dacha (summer cottage).  She loves the sisters and is trying so hard to develop unity amongst them.  It has been just a little over a year since the two branches were combined and there is still a need to make everyone feel a part of things! We LOVE Lubova!

When we got home that night...we took the decorative covers off our radiators and had the fan blow the
warm air from the radiators out into the room.  Our apartment was so cold!  The hot water flowing through the radiators has provided a comfortable situation for us but when the temperatures dipped ... things got a little too nippy and when there's no thermostate...you find other ways to stay warm!  The next three days I was in bed recovering from a nasty flu that Elder Pocock had just recovered from.  Glad to report that we both are up and running at full speed again!

One event that I missed was the baptism of two very special people...Valdimer and Irina.  They are such a delightful couple.  Our elders met them on the streets and introduced the gospel to both of them at the same time.  They are planning on getting married soon...this will be a second marriage for both of them. We are so excited to think about having another couple united in the gospel as a part of the branch.  This picture was taken just after their baptism.

This is our little Maria...she was on the blog on her blessing day.  She is growing like crazy...two months already.  Here Tanya is bundling her up for their walk to the bus stop, their bus ride and then their walk to their apartment.

 Tanya, Sasha and little Maria heading to the bus.  They are so faithful to brave the cold weather and be at church every Sunday...no car seats for little Maria...no car for Tanya and Sasha!

Remember Michael.  We had him over this week to work on getting some employment to help pay for his tuition.  He and Elder Pocock are such good friends and he relies heavily on Elder Pocock's ability to search the web.  Five hours later, we decided that we had to introduce Michael to Subway.  He had never tasted a sub before...he quite liked the whole concept but commented that he still preferred his Nigerian dinners.

Wednesday, January 23rd, we were at the airport for our final visa trip.  We kept waiting for the ticket office to open and finally found out that the flight from Perm to Moscow had been cancelled.  Thank goodness we had one extra day before our visa expired...so the airline made new reservations for the following day.  Thursday January 24th...we were at the airport for our final visa trip.  This time it happened and we arrived in Helsinki Thursday evening.  Just had to take this picture of the shampoo in our shower...four different languages to explain what this was...Finnish, Swedish, English and Russian!
The world is getting smaller and smaller.

We were blessed with two sessions in the Finnish temple!  It was sad to say a forever goodbye to this sweet refuge.

As we climbed the steps, we passed a handsome young man chipping away the ice and snow from the pathway leading to the temple.  We commented on his hard job in the freezing cold...he said, "It is an honor to be able to prepare the path for those coming to the Lord's house."  We left Finland at 6:40 p.m...arrived in Moscow at 10:15 p.m...left Moscow airport at 1:30 a.m. and arrived in Perm at 5:35 a.m.!  It was a L O N G night.  Needless to say, we took a much needed nap before heading to the church for missionary coordination and branch leadership training.

This is a picture taken from inside the branch.  Everywhere you look, people are shoveling snow off the roofs.  We are getting more and more snow every night.  This weekend is our Branch Conference.  The
Mission Presidency, Pres. Rust and his counselors trained the priesthood and Sister Rust and I shared the duties of training our Relief Society, Young Women and Primary leadership.

After the training, we were invited to go to a Ukrainian restaurant and enjoy great food and wonderful company.  President and Sister Rust are in the foreground; to the far right is President Rafes from Ufa; next is our Branch President; then the second counselor in the Mission Presidency, President Novikov, his wife and little guy from Yekaterinburg; Yulia, our branch president's wife and then me.  The restaurant creates little diningroom areas where you feel that you are sitting around the table at home!  The food was delicious.

This little one was the life of the party!  Part of the seating around the table was a metal bed...he loved jumping... then taking a bite...then jumping some more!

Branch conference was an eventful day.  Elder Pocock was sustained as the new second counselor in our branch presidency.  Our amazing Dima (Dmitriy) received the Melchizedek Priesthood and is preparing to go to the Kiev temple with the branch in March!  Yea, Dima!!! 

We know that this has been a hard winter for everyone!  Hang in there...the long month of January is soon over and with February comes the hope of spring!   We just have to enjoy the beauty that comes with this time of year.  We leave Friday for Ufa to finish the audit for the Ufa branch.  Another adventure ahead!

Welcome to Perm's Ice City... It is a traditional festival that they have annually around their Christmas, January 7.  Artists work for weeks preparing the ice sculptures.  Here we have a city sculpted out of ice in the background with singers entertaining the crowds.  It was so fun to see them dance and sing "Jingle Bells" in Russian!

Every year Perm selects a country to pay tribute to.  This year it is Holland.  Here Lena, Tanya, and Elder Pocock stand in front of ice tulips.  The biggest challenge is not keeping the ice from melting...it is keeping the snow off the sculptures!

You can see that we were getting snowed on while attending the ice display...we were glad because the temperatures were a bit warmer!!!

They had one snow sculpture.  Click on the picture and hopefully you can see the detail.  This was the only display in snow... all the rest were in ice.  So much detail...so much work!

This had to be my favorite...it was gorgeous.  You can see how tall these long, stem roses are.  With the light shining from the inside...it helped to highlight the details.  So beautiful.

Leading up to the huge Christmas tree in the center of the Ice City is a walkway that you can go through that depicts a famous cathedral in Holland.

It was such a sight with the lighting, the light snow falling and the intricately carved ice designs.

This couple on stilts was a real popular attraction.  How they ever stayed upright on the snow and ice, I will never understand!

Several horse-drawn sleighs took families for a ride around the Ice City.  We arrived in Perm in February, 2012 and by the time we got to the displays, they were dismantling them.  This year we were so grateful to be a part of such an amazing display of art and such a fun celebration.

This is our second counselor's family...Valery, Auxana, and Ona.  We went to enjoy their company and
celebrate the holidays with them.  We have seen many Christmas trees draped with long ice cycles in homes where we have visited.  You may wonder how Auxana can wear a sleeveless blouse in minus 20 degree weather...but the hot water, radiator heat keeps their apartment very comfortable.  Valery wants more than anything for Auxana to embrace the gospel and have their family united in one faith.

Here is Valery's grandmother Ona.  The little daughter is named after her.  Grandma made her way out of her bedroom to greet us.  She hasn't been well, so it was wonderful to see her up and around.  She is 88 years old.  Always a treat to visit this great family.

We had to get a picture of this man...we were celebrating Tanya's birthday and he came by our table.  Don't know his name...but he would make a great Grandfather Frost, don't you think?  Apparently he is quite the athlete here in Perm...a pleasure to see him!

Congratulations Tanya (R) and Happy Birthday.  It is a tradition here that the person celebrating the birthday invites and pays for the birthday dinner.  Tanya treated us and other friends to a tasty meal and
then an evening of games.  It seems like it should be the other way around...us treating Tanya! Thanks for a wonderful evening.

Lubov, the Family History specialist, invited Elder Pocock and I to share some of our experiences with Family History.  She is trying to get people involved in the program and prepare names to take to the temple.  My involvement in Family History has been more in the area of writing histories of ancestors and I shared how to go about doing that.  Elder Pocock had his trusty computer and talked about the satisfaction of helping to complete the puzzle of connecting families together.  Whenever Elder Pocock isn't doing missionary work, he is working on his Family History!  Lubov is very motivated and committed to Family History.  She blesses this branch.

It's done.  Nastia has finished her very own creation.  Wish you could see the details of the dress better...pockets coming off of the princess lines.  She did a great job.  She told me she bought more material for another project...she's excited about sewing.  It was so fun to teach her a lifetime skill!

Family Home Evening this week was entitled: "Hot Soup and Hot Topics!"  We had a great group... and we discussed how to make meaningful goals for 2013.  We reminded them that unless a goal is written down and then worked on, it is only a wish.  Many of them have so many challenges that despair limits their progress.  How we hope that we motivated these great young people to feel that they truly can set and REACH worthwhile goals!

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After FHE, we rolled up the rug and Sasha taught a modified cha-cha.  Not too many know how to dance, but they were very interested in learning.

The day after FHE, we packed up and left for Ufa on assignment from President Rust.  Ufa is a sixteen hour train ride...but President Rust has found an airline that flys there for less than the train ride.  From Perm it takes only an hour to Yekaterinburg, an overnight stay in Ekat, and then another hour on to Ufa.  I wasn't very excited about flying in such a small, prop engine plane...but we arrived safe and sound.

Welcome to Ufa...we were here Thursday through Monday.  Our main assignment was for Elder Pocock to meet with the branch clerk in preparation for the sixth month audit.  While we were here, we also inspected missionary apartments, attended zone meeting, missionary coordination, branch council, got asked to speak in Sacrament meeting, attended their Institute class, visited with their Branch Presidency, sat in on discussions and member visits and hugged the missionaries!  We loved our time here.

These three missionaries have previously served in Perm with us...L to R Elders O'Neill and Flitton, and Sister Robins.  The Elders are now the zone leaders in Ufa and Sister Robins is training a new sister missionary.  We have such great memories with these missionaries...it was wonderful to be able
to work with them again even if for a short time!

The Ufa Zone: L to R, Elders Hatfield, Artyukhov (native Russian), Sisters Rodgers, Petersen (new missionary) Sisters Patchett (new missionary), Robins, Sister and Elder Pocock, Elders Flitton and O'Neill.  This church is so blessed to have great young men and women who have such a desire to share their testimonies.

Ufa has a beautiful branch building.  The church was able to purchase enough property that the building could be all on one level.  We loved the open floor plan.  What a blessing to have their own place to meet.

When we left the branch on Sunday...after all the after-the-block meetings...this little tyke was at the front of the building shoveling snow.  The snow reminded me of that soap "Ivory Flakes".  It was so powdery and drifted so easily, makes for easy removal!

We told the missionaries to keep us busy while we were in Ufa and they did!  We loved visiting the members with them.  Here we have Sister Reisa.  She has been a member for ten years and is so very faithful.  Her daughter and grandson live with her.  It was sweet to see how kind her teenage grandson was to her.  Seriously, this little woman is a bundle of energy!

We had the privilege of participating in a discussion with a wonderful sister...Nadezda.  Sister Rodgers, who is only in her third transfer, is training Sister Petersen.  Because we have so few missionaries in this mission...they have to step up to a great deal of responsibility very fast!  They are both somewhat insecure with this very difficult language so a great returned missionary from the branch, Kirill, has been sitting in on their lessons and assisting where needed.  Nadezda met the missionaries on the bus and immediately started to read the Book of Mormon and meet with them.  She shared the stories of the BofM with her granddaughter and come to find out...some time ago her granddaughter found a Book of Mormon in a trash can, retrieved it and started to read it!  So now they are able to discuss these eternal principles together.  The granddaughter isn't ready to meet with the missionaries yet...but Nadezda gets the discussions and then mets with her grandchild.  Nadezda is already a missionary in her own right.

We found it really cold in Ufa...even the dogs have to bundle up!

Just down from our hotel was this beautiful Pravoslav cathedral.

Ufa appeared to be a newer city and it even has a freeway...something we haven't seen except when we were in Moscow and Finland.

This enlarged picture is dedicated to Elder Pocock.  When we arrived we were told, "It isn't IF but WHEN you will fall on the icy streets or sidewalks."  We have been so proud of ourselves...didn't fall last winter...hadn't fallen yet, UNTIL we went to Ufa.  At the bottom of this hill, you get a glimpse of the branch building.  This sidewalk is sheer ice with a thin layer of powder on top.  We had to walk down to the branch and back up to our hotel multiple times and this is where Elder Pocock met his demise!  Seriously, I don't know how these people maneuver these sidewalks in the winter.  One trip up the hill we helped a little, old (much older than us) lady with a cane get up this hill and then across the main street and up another hill to the neighborhood grocery store.  And the amazing thing is that many of their apartments have very small refrigerator space...so they have to make multiple trips to the store every week or carry large amounts of groceries on public transport.  We are so spoiled.  When I think of how we would go to Costco...fill our carts to the brim...load it into our cars...drive into our garages (with garage door openers!) and then deposit our groceries into our fridge in the kitchen and the extra one in the garage!!!!  Even in Perm, Elder Pocock and I are spoiled because we have a little grocery store right at the base of our apartment building...so we only have a short distance to go multiple times a week.  Count your many blessings!

This is our hotel...

The hotel room had a kitchenette.  We were excited to get to a little store and purchase some groceries.  We saw a pizza...it looked so tasty, so we bought it!  When we got back to the hotel, we realized that there was NO OVEN, just a stove top!  Well, as I have said before, where there is a will there is a way.  We cooked our pizza on very low heat in this covered pan.  The first round it worked beautifully...the pizza was delicious.  Second time around, we stunk up the whole room...unedible!

Elders Flitton and O'Neill practicing their door approach before contacting their neighbor.  

We found Ufa very festive.  They had a lot of holiday decorations around the town. Here you see some of their ice sculptures from afar.

Ice sculptures are a common thing in Russia.  Ufa's ice display was more modest than the one in Perm.  It was geared more to children.  Here is a sculpture of CPO 3!

We loved Ufa.  The people that we met, the cleanliness of the city, of course, being with our missionaries!, the branch leadership, being able to sit in on discussions, it was just a wonderful four days.  We have reported our visit to President Rust and will now be going back early in February to complete the audit with the branch.  It was so satisfying to be able to visit another branch and see the strength of the church in another area in Russia.  We are so grateful for the younger generation of Ufa who will continue to carry this work forward and build this area.  Russia is an amazing country, with such hardy and determined people.  Please continue to pray for the missionary work in Russia.  We truly love these people and want them to embrace the truth!