We are saying goodbye to our friend Ksusha Zolotova this week. She is leaving for America tomorrow, and we will miss her terribly. She is always so helpful to translate for us at FHE and to go with us to visit less-active members. Our only condolence is that we will hopefully see her again. She will live with her aunt in Seattle for six months and then apply to LDS Business College in SLC. The branch planned a surprise going-away party on Friday night. They played a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" kinda game, and I was one of her lifelines. She called on me to help her with the question of what holiday is observed on November 11. Thankfully, I answered it right. After all, it would be pretty embarrassing to be American and not know the answer! We just love Ksusha and are confident she will adjust well to her new environment; however, I think she'll find herself being more homesick than she thinks she will be.
We had a fun activity for our cycle cultural event this week. We went to a less-active member's art school and painted a picture. She teaches children at her school and has had a few students go on to study art at the universities. It's amazing to see the paintings these kids create. I wasn't real crazy about going because you know what a rotten artist I am, but I honestly had more fun than I thought I would. Sister Elena helped me get the base colors on the canvas and then I slopped some flowers on. I'll give you three guess what Dad painted...yep, a golf hole. Sister Elena has a testimony; she just doesn't have time to come to church right now. We just keep in touch with her and hope she will soften her heart to return some day. I don't know if you remember me telling you about when we visited her art school once before. The sister missionaries and branch president are good to keep in touch with her and her husband, as well.
We had a very rewarding, tiring weekend. We planned to visit the Ulianovsk branch which is a four-hour bus trip from here. Dad was sick on Friday night so he had the elders give him a blessing while they were here for district meeting because he felt it was important for us to keep our commitment to go. He made it through the weekend just great; we are so grateful for priesthood blessings. We left Saturday morning along with the elders who are serving in that city. They had been here in Toliatti on splits because Elder Glavatsky, who is one of the missionaries in Ulianovsk, is the district leader and visits the other missionaries within the district periodically. They were so gracious to take care of us--buy our tickets, get us to our hotel, haul our suitcase. These two elders have been in the district and we served with them when they lived here, one in Komsomolski, the other in Old City. So anyway, we stayed in a very nice hotel overlooking the Volga. This river is huge! Ulianovsk is a pretty city--pretty buildings, the Volga river, tree-lined streets, and dad particularly loved the full GRASS soccer field, the first we've seen since we've been here. It is the city were Lenin was born so there are lots of historical museums, statues, etc. We walked across the street by the river to check out a statue there and a water-fountain display which attracted a lot of attention, but compared to the Bilagio, it is pretty lame. Saturday night the branch planned a FHE for us to host which was interesting. I presented my little ditty on the power of music that I had done for our YSA FHE here a few weeks ago that went really well. We were told we would have quite a few YSA there, but we didn't have any--until the end when one came from work. So it wasn't quite the same as it was before, and I had to do some on-the-spot rearranging to relate the message more towards the audience. They didn't quite appreciate the songs I played for them like Santa Claus is Coming to Town, or Dynamite, or Showdown. I was trying to prove the point of how different music promotes different emotions and feelings. It went over a lot better with the YSA, but hopefully I was able to bring it around with some personal experiences and focus more on the importance of hymns. We even brought our speakers and little subwoofer with us in the suitcase. We played General Conference Bingo after, and that is always a hit.
So a little about the branch--president and his wife are fabulous! There were about ten other members besides them in church on Sunday. We went to branch council meeting before the block meetings started, and this branch president follows the handbook to a tee which is refreshing. One funny thing is his counselor came in a few minutes late, walked through the room onto the balcony where he apparently keeps his church clothes, changed into them, and came into the meeting. He also changed out of them before going home at the end of the day. These saints were very loving and accepting of us. It's amazing that there are so few members in this city of 700,000+ people. There is lots of converting to do! Dad spoke on the Book of Mormon (all in Russian!), I bore my testimony and played a piano solo. One of the elders also spoke and led the music. Thank heavens for the missionaries in these small branches. There were four of us in RS, along with the flower arrangement on the table:) We helped the elders teach an investigator after the meetings, and then we went to get our bus. One of the members went with us on the marshutka from the church house to McDonald's so we could get something to eat, walked with us to the Autovaksal (bus station) with our suitcase in tow, and waited with us for the 40 minutes before our bus left. Mind you, he doesn't speak a work of English so we had to use our limited vocabulary and then pretend we could understand some of what he said. Well, we could understand some of what he said but not a lot. He went above and beyond to make sure we were well taken care of.
The bus ride home was interesting. We would stop every so often to pick up riders when there was standing room only. For one thirty-minute stretch, Dad had a large woman standing next to him with her purse in his face. We had a little baby screaming for about 45 minutes. These little vans don't have windows that open or air conditioning, so that's a treat. We wanted to have the full Russian experience!! But we're home safe and sound and had a nice P-day to recover from it.
We couldn't survive this experience without all of you, our dear friends and family, who constantly love us, support us, help us, save us, write us, pray for us, heal us, and the list never ends. Thank you so much for your help in the missionary effort! We love you!
1 - Art cultural activity
2 - Goodbye to Ksusha
3 - Millionaire game with Ksusha and Mom
4 - Uri Teplikov and wife
5 - Statue in Ulianovsk
6 - Ulianovsk Branch
7 - FHE Bingo in Ulianovsk
8 - Cinderella
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