This week was also transfer week. We had changes in 3 out of the 4 companionships in our district. One of the elders "died"...went home to Kansas, literally! We cried. We get so attached to these missionaries. Must be the parental nature in us! The sister who transferred is from Ukraine and will be going home in July so we won't see her again any time soon. It is such a blessing to serve with these missionaries! We just love being amongst such stalwart young men and women who come from diverse backgrounds and upbringings. You form eternal relationships with people who you would not otherwise have an opportunity to meet.
I attended a Relief Society activity recently. It is the monthly meeting we have as sisters to learn and support one another. Here they call it “academia.” The Relief Society President shares a spiritual thought first. Last month one of the babushkas taught us how to crochet. This month we signed a message about the Resurrection and sent one to each less-active sister. Then we made a salad. Russian salads vary but usually have common ingredients of shredded beets, carrots, canned peas (no such thing as frozen peas), potato, onion, and a generous amount of mayonnaise to mix it all together. This salad had tuna in it, but I have seen chicken added, too. It was quite tasty! Once fresh vegetables come on, there will be a lot of cucumber and
tomato salads. Of course, we always complete the meal with tea and cookies! Next month our activity is at our house. They want to be able to use the kitchen to cook a traditional Russian pastry. Our little church building doesn’t have a kitchen. I don’t know how it will all work exactly because my kitchen is only big enough for a couple of people to fit into it, but they’re used to it and will know how to manage I’m sure.
We visited our 86-year old Svetlana this week. She is graciously helping us with our Russian. We read from the Book of Mormon together. She would stop and explain some of the words to us which was quite amazing. She would explain a word we didn’t know by somehow finding a way to help us understand—all in Russian! Most of the time we understood, and when we didn’t, we just pretended we did. We will return occasionally and have her help us. She brought a book to church one week for us to practice our cursive writing (a whole new way to write letters). We feel like it helps us and hopefully helps her, too, to have visitors.
We went to visit a member family for FHE Monday. They live in a village about 40 minutes outside of Toliatti. The cottages are divided by fences, oftentimes cobblestone fences and are very unique. This family's cottage is more like a cabin - logged with beautifully-finished wood floors, lantern-styled light fixtures. They have a large area of land with a water well, lots of fruit trees and garden areas, small pool. We ran out of time to take many pictures but are hoping to go back again. This family consists of the mom (her husband died in Jan last year), her daughter and her husband, and a 14-year old son. The grandma and grandpa live close by so they came over, too. The daughter served her mission in England 10 years ago and still speaks very good English so she helped translate when we needed it. They fed us borsch, pizza (delicious!), and banana chocolate torte (even more delicious!!). They are a strong family who adds so much to the branch.
I gave a presentation in District Council on Sunday about the power of music. I focused on using hymns to create emotions of spirituality and peace and to invite the Spirit into our church meetings. Russians love to sing the hymns and sing in every meeting and activity. I wanted to focus on using hymns effectively in Sacrament meeting; only one of the three branch presidents attended the meeting so I was speaking on deaf ears. Oh well. I will have to take a more active role in trying to put together special musical numbers in the branches.
We have District Conference this weekend, and the District President asked the branch presidents to notify every member in their branches which isn't happening. So we made flyers and went out as missionaries in each district last night to deliver to as many less-active members as we could. We helped the missionaries in Komsomolski who had prayed about which members we should visit. We were 6 for 6 which was a real answer to prayer! You have to get beyond a locked apartment building door, and every building we went to had either someone coming or going or was open so we were able to get in. And every person was home and was cordial. A couple of them even wanted us to stay; we'll have to return later. It helped that the District President's daughter who is in that branch was with us and most of the people know her. 6 members
isn't 60, but it's six more than would have known about the Conference otherwise and we have contacts who we can work with in the future.
1 - These are hard shoes to fill!
2 - A cultural event to an "exotic" fish display. Sisters Semyonova and Braginyets
3 - family we visited in the village: Babushka Vera and husband
Sasha, her daughter Galina, her granddaughter Oleca and husband Andre
4 - Zolotov girls
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